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SOMEBODY’S NEIGHBORS 


BY 


ROSE TERRY COOKE 

*1 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 


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Copyright, i88i, 

By JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 


<4// rights reserved, 

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I OFFER 


THIS BOOK OF NEW-ENGLAND PROSE 

Co*i)Hp JnmU 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

MASTER AND MAKER 


OF NEW-ENGLAND POETRY. 



PUBLISHERS’ NOTE. 


Of the pieces contained in this volume, Squire Paine’s 
Conversion, Miss Beulah’s Bonnet, Cal Culver and the 
Devil, Amandar, Poll Jennings’s Hair, and Mrs. Flint’s 
Experience, are reprinted from “Harpers’ Magazine.” 

The remainder are reprinted from “ The Atlantic 
Monthly,” “ The Galaxy,” and “ Putnam’s Monthly.’^' 









CONTENTS 


rAUB. 

Eben Jackson . i 

Miss Lucinda.30 

Dely’s Cow.. . 74 

Squire Paine’s Convebsion.94 

Miss Beulah’s Bonnet.126 

Cal Culver and the Devil ...... 153 

Amandar.193 

Polly Mariner, Tailoress.229 

Uncle Josh .263 

Poll Jennings’s Hair.286 

Freedom "Wheeler’s Controversy with Provedencb . 32C 
Mbs. Flint’s Married Experience.368 













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SOMEBODY’S NEIGHBORS. 


EBEN JACKSON. 


** Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, 

Nor the furious winter’s rages; 

Thou thine earthly task hast done.” 

The large tropical moon rose in full majesty over the 
Gulf of Mexico, that beneath it rolled a weltering 
surge of silver, which broke upon the level sand of the 
beach with a low, sullen roar, prophetic of storms to 
come. To-night a south wind was heavily blowing 
over gulf and prairie, laden with salt odors of weed 
and grass, now and then crossed by a strain of such 
perfume as only tropic breezes know, — a breath of 
heavy, passionate sweetness from orange-groves and 
rose-gardens, mixed with the miasmatic sighs of rank 
forests, and mile on mile of tangled cane-brake, where 
jewel-tinted snakes glitter, and emit their own sickly- 
sweet odor, and the deep blue bells of luxuriant vines 
wave from their dusky censers steams of poisonous 
incense. 

I endured the influence of all this as long as I dared, 
and then turned my pony’s head from the beach, and, 
‘oitering through the city’s hot streets, touched him 
Into a gallop as the prairie opened before us, and fol- 

1 



q 


somebody's neighboes. 


lowed the preternatural, colossal shadow of horse and 
man cast by the moon across the dry dull grass and 
bitter yellow chamomile growth of the sand, till I 
stopped at the ofiSce-door of the hospital, when, con¬ 
signing my horse to a servant, I commenced my night¬ 
ly round of the wards. 

There were but few patients just now; for the fever 
had not yet made its appearance, and until within a 
week the unwontedly clear and cool atmosphere had 
done the work of the physician. Most of the sick 
were doing well enough without me : some few needed 
and received attention; and, these disposed of, I be¬ 
took myself to the last bed in one of the long wards, 
quite apart from the others, which was occupied by a 
sailor, — a man originally from New England, whose 
hard life, and continual exposure to all climates and 
weathers, had at length resulted in slow tubercular 
consumption. 

It was one of the rare cases of this disease not su¬ 
pervening upon an original strumous diathesis, and, 
had it been properly cared for in the beginning, might 
have been cured. Now there was no hope; but, the 
case being a peculiar and interesting one, I kept a 
faithful record of its symptoms and progress for publi¬ 
cation. Besides, I liked the maa. Rugged and hardy 
by nature, it was curious to see what strange effects a 
long, wasting, and painful disease produced upon him. 
At first he could not be persuaded to be quiet. The 
muscular energies were still unaffected; and, with con¬ 
tinual hemorrhage from the lungs, he could not under¬ 
stand that work or exercise could hurt him. But, as 
the disease gained ground, its characteristic languor 
unstrung his force ; the hard and sinewy limbs became 


EBEN JACKSON. 


3 


Attenuated and relaxed; his breath labored; a hectic 
fever burnt in his veins, like light flame, every after¬ 
noon, and subsided into chilly languor toward morning ; 
profuse night-sweats increased the weakness, and as 
he grew feebler, offering of course less resistance to 
the febrile symptoms, they were exacerbated, till at 
times a slight delirium showed itself: and so, without 
haste or delay, he “ made for port,’* as he said. 

His name was Eben Jackson, and the homely appel¬ 
lation was no way belied by his aspect. He never 
could have been handsome: and now flfteen years of 
rough-and-tumble life had left their stains and scars on 
his weather-beaten visage, whose only notable features 
were the deep-set eyes, retreating under shaggy brows, 
that looked one through and through with the keen 
glance of honest instinct; while a light tattooing of red 
and blue on either cheek-bone added an element of 
the grotesque to his homeliness. He was a natural 
and simple man, with whom conventionalities and the 
world’s scale went for nothing, — without vanity, as 
without guile. But it is best to let him speak for him¬ 
self. I found him that night very feverish, yet not 
wild at all. 

“Hullo, doctor!” said he, “I’m all afire I I’ve 
ben thinkin’ about my old mother’s humstead up to 
Simsbury, and the great big well to the back-door; 
how I used to tilt that ’are sweep up, of a hot day, till 
the bucket went ’way down to the bottom, and come up 
drippin’ over, — such cold, clear water I I swear I’d 
give all Madagascar for a drink on’t! ” 

I called the nurse to bring me a small basket of 
oranges I had sent out in the morning expressly for 
this patient: and, squeezing the juice from one of them 


4 


somebody’s neighboes. 


on a little bit of ice, I held it to his lips, and he drank 
eagerly. 

“ That’s better for you than water, Jackson,” said I. 

“I dunno but ’tis, doctor; I dunno but tis; but 
there a’n’t nothin’ goes to the spot like that Simsbury 
water. You ha’n’t never v’yaged to them parts, have 
ye? ” 

“ Bless you, yes, man! I was born and brought up 
in Hartford, just over the mountain ; and I’ve been to 
Simsbury, fishing, many a time.” 

“ Good Lord! You don’t never desert a feller, ef 
the ship is a-going down! ” fervently ejaculated Eben, 
looking up, as he did sometimes in his brief delirium, 
when he said the Lord’s Prayer, and thought his 
mother held his folded hands. But this was no deliri¬ 
ous aspiration. He went on, — 

“ You see, doctor, I’ve had somethin’ in the hold a 
good spell’t I wanted to break bulk on, but I didn’t 
know as I ever was goin’ to see a shipmet agin. And 
now you’ve jined convoy jist in time, for Davy Jones’s 
a’n’t fur off. Are you calculatin’ to go North afore 
long?” 

“ Yes, I mean to go next spring,” said I. 

Jackson began to fumble with weak and trembling 
nands about his throat to undo his shirt-collar, — he 
would not let me help him, — and presently, flushed 
.and panting from the effort, he drew out a length of 
delicate Panama chain fastened rudely together by a 
Unk of copper wire, and suspended on it a little, old- 
fashioned ring of reddish gold, twisted of two wires, 
and holding a very small dark garnet. Jackson looked 
at it as I have seen many a Catholic look at his reli- 
tiuary in mortal sickness. 


EBEN JACKSON. 


5 


“Well,*’ said he, “I’ve carried that ’are gimcrack 
nigh twenty long year round my old scrag ; and, when 
I’m sunk, I want you to take it off, doctor. Keep it 
safe till you go to Connecticut, and then some day take 
a tack over to Simsbury. Don’t ye go through the 
gap, but go ’long out on the turnpike over the moun¬ 
tain, and down t’other side to Avon, and so nor’ard 
till jist arter you git into Simsbury town you see an 
old red house ’longside o’ the mountain, with a big 
ellum-tree afore the door, and a stone well to the side 
on’t. Go ’long in, and ask for Hetty Buel, and give 
her that ’are thing, and tell her where you got it, and 
that I ha’n’t never forgot to wish her well alius, though 
I couldn’t write to her.” 

There was Eben Jackson’s romance. It piqued my 
curiosity. The poor fellow was wakeful and restless: 
I knew he would not sleep if I left him, and I encour¬ 
aged him to go on talking. 

“I will, Jackson, I promise you. But wouldn’t it 
be better for you to tell me something about where you 
have been all these long years? Your friends will like 
to know.” 

His eye brightened: he was, like all the rest of us, 
pleased with any interest taken in him and his. He 
turned over on his pillow, and I lifted him into a half¬ 
sitting position. 

“That’s ship-shape, doctor! I don’t know but 
what I had oughter spin a yarn for you: I’m kinder on 
a watch to-night; and Hetty won’t never Imow what 
I did do, if I don’t send home the log ’long ’i’ the 
cargo. 

“ Well, you see, I was born in them parts, down to 
Canton, where father belonged; but mother was a 


6 


somebody's neighbors. 


Simsbury woman ; and afore I was long-togged, father 
he moved onter the old humstead up to Simsbury, 
when gran’ther Peck died. Our farm was right 4ong- 
side o’ Miss Buel’s. You’ll see’t when you go there, 
but there a’n’t nobody there now. Mother died afore 
I come away, and lies safe to the leeward o’ Simsbury 
meetin’-house. Father he got a stroke a spell back, 
and he couldn’t farm it: so he sold out, and went 
West, to Parmely Larkum’s, my sister’s, to live. But 
I guess the house is there, and that old well. How 
etamal hot it’s growin’! Doctor, give me a drink. 

“Well, as I was tellin’, I lived there next to Miss 
Buel’s; and Hetty ’n’ I went to deestrict school to¬ 
gether, up to the cross-roads. We used to hev’ ovens 
in the sand together, and roast apples an’ ears of com 
in ’em; and we used to build cubby-houses, and fix ’em 
out with broken chiny and posies. I swan ’t makes 
me feel curus when I think what children du contrive 
to get pleased, and likewise riled about. One day I 
rec’lect Hetty’d stepped onto my biggest clam-shell and 
broke it, and I up and hit her a switch right across her 
pretty lips. Now, you’d ’a’ thought she would cry and 
mn, for she wasn’t bigger than a baby, much; but she 
jest come up and put her little fat arms round my neck, 
and says, — 

“ ‘ I’m so sorry, Eben! ’ 

“ And that’s Hetty Buel! I declare I was beat, and 
1 hav’n’t never got over bein’ beat about that. So we 
growed up together, always out in the Yi oods between 
schools, huntin’ checkerberries, and young winter- 
greens, and prince’s-piney, and huckleberries, and 
saxifrax, and birch, and all them woodsy things that 
**hildren banker arter; and by-m-by we got to goin’ to 


EBEN JACKSON. 


7 


the 'cademy. And when Hetty was seventeen she went 
in to Hartford to her aunt Smith’s for a spell, to do 
chores, and get a little seminary lamin’, and I went to 
W'ork on the farm ; and when she come home, two 3 ’ear 
arter, she was growed to be a young w^oman, and, 
though I was five year older’n her, I was as sheepish 
a land-lubber as ever got stuck a-goin’ to the mast¬ 
head, whenever I sighted her. 

‘‘She wasn’t very much for looks, neither. She 
had black eyes, and she was pretty behaved ; but she 
wasn’t no gret for beaut}', anyhow, only I thought the 
world of her, and so did her old grandmother; for 
her mother died when she wa’n’t but two year old, and 
she lived to old Miss Buel’s ’cause her father had mar¬ 
ried agin away down to Jersey. 

“ Arter a spell I got over bein’ so mighty sheepish 
about Hetty: her ways was too kindly for me to keep 
on that tack. We took to goin’ to singin’-school to¬ 
gether ; then I always come home from quiltin’-parties 
and conference-meetin’s with her, because ’twas handy, 
bein’ right next door: and so it come about that I 
begun to think of settlin’ down for life, and that was 
the start of all my troubles. I couldn’t take the home 
farm; for ’twas such poor land, father could only jest 
make a live out on’t for him and me. Most of it was 
pastin’’, gravelly land, full of mulleins and stones: 
the rest was principally woodsy, — not hickory, nor oak 
neither, but hemlock and white-birches, that a’n’t,of 
no account for timber nor firing ’longside of the other 
trees. There was a little strip of a medder-lot, and 
an orchard up on the mountain, w’here we used to make 
redstreak cider that beat the Dutch; but we hadn’t 
pastin’’ land enough to keep more’n two cows, and 


8 


somebody’s neighbors. 


altogether I knew ’twasn’t any use to think of bringin’ 
a family on to’t. So I wrote to Parmely’s husband, 
out West, to know about government lands, and what 
I could do ef I was to move out there and take an 
allotment; and, gettin’ an answer every way favorable, 
I posted over to Miss Buel’s, one night arter milkin’, 
to tell Hetty. She was settin’ on the south door-step, 
braidin’ palm-leaf; and her grandmother was knittin’ 
in her old chair, a little back by the window. Some¬ 
times, a-lyin’ here on my back, with my head full o’ 
sounds, and the hot wind and the salt sea-smell 
a-comin’ in through the winders, and the poor fellers 
groanin’ overhead, I get clear away back to that night, 
so cool and sweet, — the air full of treely smells, dead 
leaves like, and white-blows in the ma’sh below, and 
wood-robins singin’ clear fine whistles in the woods, 
and the big sweet-brier by the winder all a-flowered 
out, and the drippin’ little beads of dew on the clover- 
heads, and the tinklin’ sound of the mill-dam down 
to Squire Turner’s mill. 

“ I set down by Hetty; and, the old woman bein’ as 
deaf as a post, it was as good as if I’d been there 
alone. So I mustered up my courage, that was sinkin’ 
down to my boots, and told Hetty my plans, and asked 
her to go along. She never said nothin’ for a minute. 
She flushed all up as red as a rose, and I see her little 
fingers was shakin’, and her eye-winkers shiny and 
wet; but she spoke presently, and said, — 

‘ I can’t, Eben.’ 

“ I was shot betwixt wind and water then, I tell you, 
doctor! ’Twa’n’t much to be said. But I’ve allers 
noticed afloat that real dangersome squalls comes on 
•till: there’s a dumb kind of a time in the air; the 


EBEN JACKSON. 


9 


stonn seems to be waitin’, and boldin’ its breath, and 
then a little low whisper of wind, — a cat’s-paw we 
call’t, — and then you get it real ’amest. I’d rather 
she’d have taken on, and cried, and scolded, than have 
said so still, ‘ I can’t, Eben.’ 

“ ‘ Why not, Hetty? ’ says I. 

“ ‘ I ought not to leave grandmother,’ said she. 

“I declare, I hadn’t thought o’ that! Miss Buel 
was a real infirm woman, without kith nor kin, ex¬ 
ceptin’ Hetty; for Jason Buel he’d died down to Jer¬ 
sey long before: and she hadn’t means. Hetty nigh 
about kept ’em both since Miss Buel had grown too 
rheumatic to make cheese, and see to the hens and 
cows, as she used to. They didn’t keep any men-folks 
now, nor but one cow: Hetty milked her, and drove 
her to pastur’, and fed the chickens, and braided hats, 
and did chores. The farm was all sold off. ’Twas 
poor land, and didn’t fetch much ; but what there was 
went to keep ’em in vittles and firin’. I guess Hetty 
’arnt most of what they lived on, arter all. 

“ ‘Well,’ says I, after a spell of thinkin’, ‘ can’t she 
go along too, Hetty ? ’ 

“ ‘Oh, no, Eben! she’s too old. She never could 
get there, and she never could live there. She says 
very often she wouldn’t leave Simsbury for gold un¬ 
told. She was born here, and she’s bound to die here. 
I know she wouldn’t go.’ 

“ ‘ Ask her, Hetty.’ 

“ ‘ No, it wouldn’t be any use. It would only fret her 
always to think I staid at home for her; and you know 
sue can’t do without me.’ 

“ ‘ No more can’t I,’ says I. ‘ Do you love her the 
best, Hetty?’ 


10 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“ I was kinder sorry I’d said that; for she grew real 
white, and I could see by her throat she was chokin’ to 
^eep down somethin’. Finally she said, — 

“ ‘ That isn’t for me to say, Eben. If it was right 
for me to go with you, I should be glad to; but you 
know I can’t leave grandmother.’ 

“ Well, doctor, I couldn’t say no more. I got up to 
go. Hetty put down her work, and walked to the big 
ellum by the gate with me. I was most too full to 
speak; but I catched her up, and kissed her soft little 
tremblin’ lips, and her pretty eyes; and then I set off 
; cr home as if I was goin’ to be hanged. 

“Young folks is obstreperous, doctor. I’ve been a 
long spell away from Hetty, and I don’t know as I 
should take on so now. That night I never slept. I 
lay kickin’ and tumblin’ all night; and before mornin’ 
I’d resolved to quit Simsbury, and go seek my fortin’ 
beyond seas, hopin’ to come back to Hetty, arter all, 
with riches to take care on her right there in the old 
place. You’d ’a’ thought I might have had some kind 
of feelin’ for my old father, after seein’ Hetty’s faith¬ 
ful ways. But I was a man, and she was a woman; 
and I take it them is two different kind o’ craft. Men 
is allers for themselves first, an’ devil take the hind¬ 
most ; but women lives in other folks’s lives, and ache, 
and work, and endure all sorts of stress o’ weather 
afore they’ll quit the ship that’s got crew and pas¬ 
sengers aboard. 

•‘I never said nothin’- to father, — I couldn’t ’a* 
stood no jawin’,—but I made up my kit, an’ next 
night slung it over my shoulder, and tiamped off. I 
couldn’t have gone without biddin’ Hetty good-by: so 
I stopped there, and told her what I was up to, and 
charged her to tell father. 


EBEN JACKSON. 


11 


“ She tried her best to keep me to home ; but I was 
sot in my way: so, when she found that out, she run 
up stairs an’ got a little Bible, and made me promise 
I’d read it sometimes; and then she pulled that ’are 
little ring off her finger and give it to me to keep. 

“ ‘Eben,’ says she, ‘I wish you wf'h always, and I 
sha’n’t never forget you.’ 

“And then she put up her face to me, as innocent 
as a baby, to kiss me good-by. I see she choked up 
when I said the word, though, and I said, kinder 
laughin’, — 

“ ‘ I hope you’ll get a better husband than me, 
Hetty.’ 

“ I swear, she give me a look like the judgment- 
day, and, stoopin’ down, she pressed her lips onto that 
ring, and says she, ‘ That is my weddin’-ring, Eben,’ 
and goes into the house as still and white as a ghost; 
and I never see her again, nor never shall. — O doc¬ 
tor, give me a drink! ” 

I lifted the poor fellow, fevered and gasping, to an 
easier position, and wet his hot lips with fresh orange- 
juice. 

“ Stop now, Jackson,” said I: “ you are tired.” 

“No, I a’n’t, doctor; no, I a’n’t. I’m bound to 
finish now. But, Lord deliver us ! look there I — one 
of the Devil’s own imps, I b’lieve I ” 

I looked on the little deal stand where I had set the 
candle, and there stood one of the quaint, evil-look¬ 
ing insects that infest the island, — a praying Mantis. 
Raised up against the candle, with its fore-legs in the 
attitude of supplication that gives it the name, its long 
green body relieved on the white stearine, it was eying 
/ackson, with its head turned first on one side, and 


12 


somebody’s neighbors. 


then on the other, in the most elfish and preternatural 
way. Presently it moved upward, stuck one of its 
fore-legs cautiously into the flame, burnt it of course, 
and drew it back, eyed it, first from one angle, then 
from another, with deliberate investigation, and at 
length conveyed the injured member to its mouth, and 
sucked it steadily, resuming its stare of blank scrutiny 
at my patient, who did not at all fancy the interest 
taken in him. 

I could not help laughing at the strange manoeuvres 
of the creature, familiar as I was with them. 

“ It is only one of our Texan bugs, Jackson,’* said 
I: “ it is harmless enough.” 

“It’s got a pesky look, though, doctor. I thought 
I’d seen enough curus creturs in the Marquesas, but 
that beats all.” 

Seeing the insect really irritated and annoyed him, 
I put it out of the window, and turned the blinds 
closely, to prevent its re-entrance; and he went on 
with his story: — 

“So I tramped it to Hartford that night, got a 
lodgin’ with a first-cousin I had there, worked my pass¬ 
age to Boston in a coaster, and, after hangin’ about 
Long Wharf day in and day out for a week, I was 
driv’ to ship myself aboard of a whaler, ‘ The Lowisy 
Miles,’ Twist, cap’en ; and I writ from there to Hetty, 
so’t she could know my bearin’s so fur, and tell my 
^iather 

“It would take a w^eek, doctor, to tell you what a 
rough-an’-tumble time I had on that ’are whaler. 
There’s a feller’s writ a book about v’yagin’ afore tlic 
mast that’ll give ye an idee on’t. He had an eddication 
Bo’t he could set it off, and I fell foul of his book down 


EBEN JACKSON. 




to Valparaiso more’n a year back, and I swear I wanted 
to shake hands with him. I heerd he was gone ashore 
Bomewheres down to Boston, and he’d cast anchor for 
good. But I tell you he’s a brick, and what he said’s 
gospel truth. I thought I’d got to hell afore my time 
when we see blue water. I didn’t have no peace, ex¬ 
ceptin’ times when I was to the top, lookin’ out for 
Bpouters ; then I’d get nigh about into the clouds that 
was allers a-hangin’ down close to the sea momin’ and 
night, all kinds of colors, — red an’ purple an’ white ; 
and, ’stead of thinkin’ o’ whales, I’d get my head full 
o’ Simsbury, and get a precious knock with the butt- 
end of a handspike when I come down, ’cause I’d 
never sighted a whale till arter they see’d it on deck. 

“We was bound to the South Seas after sperm 
whales ; but we was eight months gettin’ there, and we 
took sech as we could find on the way. The cap’en 
he scooted round into one port an’ another arter his 
own business, — down to Caraccas, into Eio; and 
when we’d rounded the Horn, and was nigh about dead 
of cold an’ short rations, and hadn’t killed but three 
whales, we put into Valparaiso to get vittled, and there 
I laid hold o’ this little trinket of a chain, and spliced 
Hetty’s ring on to’t, lest I should be stranded some- 
wheres, and get rid of it onawares. 

“We cruised about in them seas a good year or 
more, with poor luck, and the cap’en growin’ more and 
more outrageous continually. Them waters aren’t 
like the Gulf, doctor, nor like '.he Northern Ocean, 
nohow. There a’n’t no choppin’ seas there, but a great, 
long, everlastin’, lazy swell, that goes rollin’ and failin’ 
away, like the toll of a big bell, in endless blue rollers. 
And Vhe trades blow through the sails like singin’, as 


14 


somebody’s neighbors. 


warm and soft as if they blowed right out o’ sunshiny 
gardens ; and the sky’s as blue as summer all the time, 
only jest round the dip on’t there’s allers a hull fleet o’ 
hazy, round-topped clouds, so thin you can see the 
moon rise through ’em; and the waves go ripplin’ off 
tlie cut-water as peaceful as a mill-pond, day and 
night. Squalls is sca’ce some times o’ the year; butj 
when there is one, I tell you a feller hears thunder. 
The clouds settle right down onto the masthead, black 
and thick, like the settlin’s of an ink-bottle ; the light- 
nin’ hisses, an’ cuts fore and aft; and corposants come 
flightin’ down onto the boom or the top, gret balls o’ 
light; and the wind roars louder than the seas; and 
the rain comes down in spouts (it don’t fall fur 
enough to drop), you’d think heaven and earth was 
come together, with hell betwixt ’em: and then it’ll 
all clear up as quiet and calm as a Simsbury Sunday, 
and you wouldn’t know it could be squally, if ’twan’t 
for the sail that you hadn’t had a chance to furl was 
drove to ribbons, and here an’ there a stout spar 
snapped Ifl^e a cornstalk, or the bulwarks stove by a 
heavy sea. There’s queer things to be heerd, too, in 
them parts, — cries to wind’ard like a drowndin’ man, 
and you can’t never And him ; noises right under the 
keel; bells ringin’ off the land, like, when you a’n’t 
within flve hundred miles of shore ; and curus hails out 
o’ ghost-ships that sails agin’ wind an’ tide. Strange, 
strange, I declare for’t! seems as though I heerd my 
old mother a-singin’ Mear now.” 

I saw Jackson was getting excited: so I gave him a 
little soothing draught, and walked away to give the 
nurse some orders. But he made me promise to return, 
ftnd hear the story out: so, after half an hour’s inves- 


EBEN JACKSON. 


15 


tigation of the wards, I came back, and found him 
composed enough to permit his resuming where he had 
left off. 

“Howsomever, doctor, there wasn’t no smooth 
sailin’ nor fair weather with the cap’en: ’twas always 
squally in his latitude, and I begun to get mutinous, 
and think of desartin’. About eighteen months arter 
we sot sail from Valparaiso, I hadn’t done somethin’ 
I’d been ordered, or I’d done it wrong, and Cap’en 
Twist come on deck, ragin’ and roarin’, with a hand¬ 
spike in his fist, and let fiy at my head. I see what 
was cornin’, and put my arm up to fend it off; and, 
gettin’ the blow on my fore-arm, it got broke acrost as 
quick as a wink, and I dropped. So they picked me up, 
and, havin’ a mate aboard who knew some doctorin’, 
I 'was spliced and bound up, and put under hatches, on 
the sick-list. I tell you I was dog-tired them days, 
lyin’ in my berth bearin’ the rats and mice scuttle 
round the bulkheads, and skitter over the fioor. I 
Cf)uldn’t do nothin’ ; and finally I bethought myself of 
Hetty’s Bible, and contrived to get it out o’ my chist, 
and when I could get a bit of a glim I’d read it. I’m a 
master-hand to remember things ; and what I read over 
and over in that ’are dog-hole of a cabin never got 
clean out of my head, no, nor never will; and, when 
the Lord above calls all hands on deck to pass muster, 
ef I’m ship-shape afore him, it’ll be because I follered 
his signals, and I’arn’t ’em out of that ’are log. But 
I didn’t foller ’em then, nor not for a plaguy long 
truise yet. 

“ One day, as I laid there, readin’ by the light of a 
bit of tallow-dip the mate gave me, who should stick 
his head into the hole he called a cabin, but old Twist ! 


16 


somebody’s neighbors. 


He’d got an idee I was shammin’ ; and, wlien he saw 
me with a book, he cussed and swore and raved, and 
finally hauled it out o’ my hand, and flung it up through 
the hatchway clean and clear overboard. 

“I tell ye, doctor, if I’d ’a’ had a sound arm, he’d 
'a’ gone after it; but I had to take it out in ratin’ at 
him, and that night my mind was made up: I was 
bound to desart at the flrst land. And it come about 
that a fortnight after my arm had jined, and I could 
haul shrouds agin, we sighted the Marquesas ; and, bein’ 
near about out o’ water, the cap’en laid his course for 
the nearest land, and by daybreak of the second day 
we lay to in a small harbor on the south side of an 
island where ships wa’n’t very prompt to go commonly. 
But old Twist didn’t care for cannibals nor wild beastsi 
when they stood in his way ; and there wasn’t but hklf 
a cask of water aboard, and that a hog wouldn’t ’a’ 
drank, only for the name on’t. So we pulled ashore 
after some, and, flndin’ a spring near by, was takin’ it 
out, hand over hand, as fast as we could bale it up, 
when all of a sudden the mate see a bunch of feathers 
over a little bush near by, and yelled out to run for our 
lives, the savages was come. 

“ Now I had made up my mind to ran away from the 
ship that very day ; and, all the while I’d been baling 
the water up, I had been tryin’ to lay my course so as 
to get quit of the boat’s crew, and be off. But natur’ 
is stronger than a man thinks. When I heerd the mate 
sing out, and see the men begin to run, I turned and 
run too. full speed, down to the shore; but my foe t 
caught in some root or hole, I fell flat down, and, 
uittin’ my head ag’inst a stone near by, I lay as good 
as dead; and, when I come to, the boat was gone, and 


EBEN JACKSON. 


17 


the ship maldn* all sail out of harbor, and a cre^v of 
wild Indian women were a-lookin’ at me as I’ve seen 
a set of Simsbury women-folks look at a baboon in a 
caravan ; but they treated me better. 

“Findin’ I was helpless, — for I’d sprained my 
ankle in the fall, — four of ’em picked me up, and car¬ 
ried me away to a hut, and tended me like a babv. 
And when the men, who’d come over to that side of the 
island ’long with ’em, and gone a-fishin’, come back, 
I was safe enough ; for women are women all the world 
over, — soft-hearted, kindly creturs, that like any thing 
that’s in trouble, ’specially if they can give it a lift 
out on’t. So I was nursed and fed, aind finally taken 
over the ridge of rocks that run acrost the island, to 
their town of bamboo huts; and now begun to look 
about me, for here I was, stranded, as one may say, 
out o’ sight o’ land. 

“ Ships didn’t never touch there, I knew by their 
ways,—their wonderin’, and takin’ sights at me. As 
for Cap’en Twist, he wouldn’t come back for his own 
father, unless he was short o’ hands for whalin’. I 
was in for life, no doubt on’t; and I’d better look at 
the fairweather side of the thing. The island was as 
pretty a bit of land as ever lay betwixt sea and sky; 
full of tall cocoanut-palms, with broad feathery tops, 
and bunches of brown nuts; bananas hung in yellow 
clumps, ready to drop off at a touch; and big bread¬ 
fruit trees stood about everywhere, lookin’ as though a 
punkin-vine had climbed up into ’em, and hung half- 
ripe punkins off of every bough; beside lots of other 
trees that the natives set great store by, and live on 
the fruit of ’em; and, fiyin‘ through all, such pretty 
birds as you never see except in them parts; but one 


18 


somebody’s neighbors. 


brown thrasher’d beat the whole on ’em singing’. Fact 
is, they run to feathers : they don’t sing none. 

“ It was as sightly a country as ever Adam and Eve 
had to themselves, but it wa’n’t home. Howsomever, 
after a while the savages took to me mightily. I was 
allers handy with tools, and by good luck I’d come off 
with two jack-knives and a loose awl in my jacket 
pocket: so I could beat ’em all at whittlin’. And 1 
made figgers, on their bows an’ pipe-stems, of things 
they never see,—roosters and horses. Miss Buel’s old 
sleigh, and the ^llbany stage, driver’n’ all, and our 
yoke of oxen a-ploughin’,—till nothin’ would serve 
them but I should have a house o’ my own, and be 
married to their king’s daughter. So I did. 

‘‘Well, doctor, you kinder wonder I forgot Hetty 
Buel. I didn’t forget her, but I knew she wa’n’t to 
be had anyhow. I thought I was in for life; and 
Wailua was the prettiest little craft that ever you set 
eyes on, — as straight as a spar, and as kindly as a 
Christian. And, besides, I had to, or I’d have been 
killed, and broiled, and eaten, whether or no. And 
then in that ’are latitude it a’n’t just the way ’tis here : 
you don’t work; you get easy and lazy and sleepy; 
somethin’ in the air kind of hushes you up; it makes 
you sweat to think, and you’re too hazy to if it didn’t; 
and you don’t care for nothing much but food and 
drink. I hadn’t no spunk left: so I married her after 
their fashion, and I lilved her well enough ; and she wafl 
my wife, after all. 

“I tell ye, doctor, it goes a gret way with men- 
folks to think any thing’s their’n, and nobody else’s. 
But, when I married her, I took, the chain with Ilettj 
Buel’s ring off my neck, and pit ’em in a sheQ, and 


EBEN JACKSON. 


19 


buried the shell under my doorway. I couldn’t have 
Wailua touch that. 

“ So there I lived fifteen long year, as it might be, 
in a kind of a curus dream, doin’ nothin’ much, only that 
when I got to know the tongue them savages spoke, 
little by little I got pretty much the steerin’ o’ the hull 
crew, till by-’n’-by some of ’em got jealous, and 
plotted and planned to kill me, because the king, Wal- 
lua’s father, was gettin’ old, and they thought I 
wanted to be king when he died, and they couldn’t 
Stan’ that noway. 

“Somehow or other .Wailua got word of what was 
goin’ on; and one night she woke me out of sleep, 
an’ told me I must run for’t, and she would hide me 
safe till things took a turn. So I scratched up the 
shell with Hetty’s ring in’t; and afore morning I was 
over t’other side of the island, in a kind of a cave 
overlookin’ the sea, near by to a grove of bananas and 
mammee-apples, and not fur from the harbor where I’d 
landed, and safe enough, for nobody but Wailua knew 
the way to’t. 

“Well, the sixth day I sot in the porthole of that 
cave I see a sail in the offing. I declare I thought I 
should ’a’ choked. I catched off my tappa-cloth, and 
h’isted it on a pole ; but the ship kep’ on stiddy out to 
sea. My heart beat up to my eyes; but I held on 
ag’inst hope, and I declare I prayed. Words come to 
me that I hadn’t said since I was a boy to Simsbury, 
and the Lord he heerd; for, as true as the compass, 
that ship lay to, tacked, put in for the island, and afore 
night I was aboard of ‘The Lysander,’ a Salem 
whaler, with my mouth full of grog and ship-biscuit, 
and my body in civilized toggery. I own I felt queer 


20 


SOMEBODY’S NEIGHBOES. 


to go away so, and leave Wailua; but I kne w ’twaa 
gettin’ her out of danger, for the old king was just 
a-goin* to die, and, if ever I’d have gone back, we 
should both have been murdered. Besides, we didn’t 
always agree: she had to walk straighter than her wild 
nato’ agreed with, because she was my wife; and we 
hadn’t no children to hold us together; and I couldn’t 
a’ taken her aboard of the whaler if she’d wanted to 
go. I guess it was best: anyhow, so it was. 

“But this wasn’t to be the end of my v’yagin’. 
‘ The Lysander ’ foundered just off Valparaiso; and, 
though all hands was saved in the boats, when we got 
to port there wasn’t no craft there bound any nearer 
homeward than an English merchant-ship for Liver¬ 
pool by way of Madeira. So I worked a passage to 
Funchal; and there I got aboard of a Southampton 
steamer bound for Cuba, that put in for coal. But, 
when I come to Havana, I was nigh about tuckered out; 
for goin’ round the Horn in ‘ The Lemon,’—that ’are 
English ship, —I’d ben on duty in all sorts o’ weather; 
and I’d lived lazy and warm so long I expect it was too 
tough for me, and I was pestered with a hard cough, 
and spit blood, so’t I was laid up a long spell in the 
hospital at Havana. And there I kep’ a-thinkin’ over 
Hetty’s Bible; and I b’lieve I studied that ’are chart 
till I found out the way to port, and made up my log 
all square for the owner; for I knowed well enough 
where I was bound, but I did hanker to get home to 
Simsbury afore shovin’ off. 

“Well, finally there come into the harbor a Mystic 
ship that was a-goin’ down the Gulf for a New-York 
owner. I’d known Seth Crane, the qap’en of her, away 
back in old Simsbury times. He was an Avon boy, 


EBEN JACKSON. 


21 


and when I sighted that vessel’s name, as I was crawl¬ 
in’ along the quay one day, and, seein’ she was Con¬ 
necticut-built, boarded her, and see Seth, I was old fool 
enough to cry right out, I was so shaky. And Seth — 
he was about as scart as ef he’d seen the dead, havin’ 
heerd up to Avon, fifteen year ago nearly, that “The 
Lowisy Miles ” had been run down off the Sandwich 
Islands by a British man-of-war, and all hands lost 
exceptin’ one o’ the boys. However, he come to his 
bearin’s after a while, and told me about our folks, and 
how’t Hetty Buel wasn’t married, but keepin’ deestrict 
school, and her old grandmother alive yet. 

“Well, I kinder heartened up, and agreed to take 
passage with Seth. — GU)od Lord, doctor! what’s 
that?” 

A peculiar and oppressive stillness had settled down 
on every thing in and out of the hospital while Jackson 
was going on with his story. I noticed it only as the 
hush of a tropic midnight; but as he spoke I heard, 
apparently out on the prairie, a heavy jarring sound, 
like repeated blows, drawing nearer and nearer the 
building. 

Jackson sprung upright on his pillows. The hectic 
passed from either gaunt and sallow cheek, leaving the 
red-and-blue tattoo marks visible in most ghastly dis¬ 
tinctness ; while the sweat poured in drops down his 
hollow temples. 

The noise drew still nearer. All the patients in the 
ward awoke, and quitted their beds hastily. The noise 
was at hand. Blows of great violence and power, 
?ind a certain malign rapidity, shook the walls from one 
end of the hospital to the other, — blow upon blow,— 
like the fierce attacks of a catapult, only with no like 


22 


somebody’s neighbors. 


result. The nurse, a German Catholic, fell on his 
knees, and told his beads, glancing over his shoulder in 
undisguised horror; the patients cowered together, 
groaning and praying; and I could hear the stir and 
confusion m the ward below. In less than a minute's 
space the singular sound passed through the house, and 
in hollow, jarring echoes died out toward the bay. 

I looked at Eben. His jaw had fallen; his hands 
were rigid, and locked together; his eyes were rolled 
upward, fixed and glassy. A stream of scarlet blood 
trickled over his gray beard from the corner of his 
mouth. He was dead. As I laid him back on the 
pillow, and turned to restore some quiet to the ward, 
a Norther came sweeping down the Gulf like a rush of 
mad spirits, tore up the white crests of the sea and 
flung them on the beach in thundering surf, burst 
through the heavy fog that had trailed upon the moon’s 
track and smothered the island in its soft, pestilent 
brooding, and in one mighty pouring-out of cold, pure 
ether changed earth and sky from torrid to temperate 
zone. 

Vainly did I endeavor to calm the terror of my 
patients, excited still more by the elemental uproai’ 
without; vainly did I harangue them, in the plainest 
terms to which science is reducible, on atmospheric 
vibrations, acoustics, reverberations, and volcanic agen¬ 
cies : they insisted on some supernatural power having 
produced the recent fearful sounds. Neither common 
nor uncommon sense could prevail with them: and 
when they discovered, by the appearance of the extra 
nurse I had sent for to perform the last offices for 
Jackson, that he was dead, a renewed and irrepressible 
horror attacked them; and it was broad day before 


EBEN JACKSON. 


23 


composure or stillness was regained in any part of the 
building except my own rooms, to which I betook 
myself as soon as possible, and slept till sunrise, too 
^soundly for any mystical visitation whatever to have 
disturbed my rest. 

The next day, in spite of the brief influence of the 
"Norther, the flrst case of yellow-fever showed itself 
in the hospital: before night seven had sickened, and 
one, aJieady reduced by chronic disease, died. 

I had hoped to bury Jackson decently, in the ceme¬ 
tery of the city, where his vexed mortality might rest 
in peace under the oleanders and china-trees, shut in 
by the hedge of Cherokee roses that guards the en¬ 
closure from the prairie, a living wall of glassy green, 
strewn with ivory-white buds and blossoms, fair and 
pure; but, on applying for a burial-spot, the city au¬ 
thorities, panic-stricken cowards that they were, denied 
me the privilege even of a prairie grave outside the 
cemetery hedge for the poor fellow. In vain did I 
represent that he had died of lingering disease, and 
that nowise contagious : nothing moved them. It was 
..nough that there was yellow-fever in the ward where 
he died. I was forthwith strictly ordered to have all 
the dead from the hospital buried cn the sand-flats at 
the east end of the island. 

What a place that is it is scarcely possible to de¬ 
scribe, — wide and dreary levels of sand some four 
or flve feet lower than the town, and flooded by high 
tides, the only vegetation a scanty, dingy gray, brittle, 
crackling growth, — bitter sandworts, and the like, 
over and through which the abominable tawny sand- 
crabs are constantly executing diabolic waltzes on tlie 
tips of their eight legs, vanishing into the ground like 


24 


somebody’s neighboes. 


imps as you approach. Curlews start from behind the 
loose drifts of sand, and float away with heart-broken 
cries seaward; little sandpipers twitter plaintively, 
running through the weeds; and great, sull^y gray 
cranes droop their motionless heads over the stiU salt 
pools along the shore. 

To this blank desolation I was forced to carry poor 
Jackson’s body, with that of the fever-patient, just at 
sunset. As the Dutchman who officiated as hearse, 
sexton, bearer, and procession stuck his spade into 
the ground, and withdrew it full of crumbling shells 
and fine sand, the hole it left filled with bitter black 
ooze. There, sunk in the ooze, covered with the shift¬ 
ing sand, bewailed by the wild cries of sea-birds, note¬ 
less and alone, I left Eben Jackson, and returned to 
the mass of pestilence and wretehedness within the 
hospital walls. 

In the spring I reached home safely. None but the 
resident on a Southern sandbank can fully appreciate 
the verdure and bloom of the North. The great elms 
of my native town were full of tender buds, like a 
clinging mist in their graceful branches ; earlier trees 
were decked with little leaves, deep-creased, and sil¬ 
very with down; the wide river in a fluent track of 
metallic lustre weltered through green meadows that 
on either hand stretched far and wide ; the rolling land 
beyond was spread out in pastures, where the cattle 
luxmiated after the winter’s stalling; and on many a 
slope and plain the patient farmer turned up Lis heavy 
sods and clay to moulder in sun and air for seedtime 
and harvest; and the beautiful valley that met the 
horizon on the north and south rolled away eastward 
and westward to a low blue range of hills that guard»v, 


EBEN JACKSON. 


25 


it with granite walls, and bristling spears of hemlock 
and pine. 

This is not my story ; and, if it were, I do not know 
that I should detail my home-coming. It is enough to 
say, that I came, after a five-years’ absence, and found 
all that I had left nearly as I had left it. How few 
can say as much! 

Various duties and some business arrangements kept 
me at work for six or seven weeks, and it was June 
before I could fulfil my promise to Eben Jackson. I 
took the venerable old horse and chaise that had car¬ 
ried my father on his rounds for years, and made the 
best of my way out toward Simsbury. I was alone, 
of course: even cousin Lizzy, charming as five years 
had made the little girl of thirteen whom I had left 
behind on quitting home, was not invited to share my 
drive: there was something too serious in the errand 
to endure the presence of a gay young lady. But I 
was not lonely. The drive up Talcott Mountain, under 
the rude portcullis of the toll-gate, through fragrant 
woods, by trickling brooks, past huge bowlders that 
scarce a wild vine dare cling to with its feeble, deli¬ 
cate tendrils, is all exquisite, and full of living repose ; 
and turning to descend the mountain, just where a 
brook drops headlong with clattering leap into a steep 
black ravine, and comes out over a tiny green meadow, 
sliding past great granite rocks, and bending the grass- 
blades to a shining track, you see suddenly at your feet 
the beautiful mountain valley of the Farmington River, 
trending away in hill after hill, rough granite ledges 
crowned with cedar and pine, deep ravines full of 
Deaped rocks, and here and there the formal white 
rows of a manufacturing village, where Kiihleborn is 


26 


somebody’s neighbors. 


captared, and forced to turn water-wheels, and Undine 
picks cotton, or grinds hardware, dammed into utility. 

Into this valley I plunged ; and, inquiring my way of 
many a prim farmer’s wife and white-headed school¬ 
boy, I edged my way northward under the mountain 
side, and just before noon found myself beneath the 
“great ellum,” where, nearly twenty years ago, Eben 
Jackson and Hetty Buel had said “ good-by.” 

I tied my horse to the fence, and walked up the 
worn footpath to the door. Apparently no one was at 
home. Under this impression I knocked vehemently, 
by way of making sure; and a weak, cracked voice at 
length answered, “ Come in ! ” There, by the window, 
— perhaps the same where she sat so long before, — 
crouched in an old chair covered with calico, her bent 
fingers striving with mechanical motion to knit a coarse 
stocking, sat old Mrs. Buel. Age had worn to the 
extreme of attenuation a face that must always have 
been hard-featured; and a few locks of snow-white 
hair straying from under the bandanna handkerchief 
of bright red and orange that was tied over her cap 
and under her chin, added to the old-world expression 
of her whole figure. She was very deaf: scarcely 
could I make her comprehend that I wanted to see her 
grand-daughter ; at last she understood, and asked me 
to sit down till Hetty should come from school; and 
before long, a tall, thin figure opened the gate, and 
came slowly up the path. 

I had a good opportunity to obser^^e the constant, 
dutiful, self-denying Yankee girl, —girl no longer, now 
that twenty years of unrewarded patience had lined 
her face with unmistakable graving. But I could not 
agree with Eben’s statement that she was not pretty. 


EBEN JACKSON. 


27 


She must have beeu so in her youth: even now there 
was beauty in her deep-set and heavily fringed dark- 
eyes, soft, tender, and serious, and in the noble and 
pensive Greek outline of the brow and nose. Her upper 
lip and chin were too long to agree well with Ler little 
classic head ; but they gave a certain just and pure ex« 
pression to the whole face, and to the large, thin-lipped 
mouth, flexible yet firm in its lines. It is true her hair 
was neither abundant, nor wanting in gleaming threads 
of gray; her skin was freckled, sallow, and devoid of 
varying tint or freshness; her figure angular and 
spare; her hands red with hard work; and her air at 
once sad and shy: still Hetty Buel was a very lovely 
woman in my eyes, though I doubt if Lizzy would 
have thought so. 

I hardly knew how to approach the painful errand I 
had come on; and, with true masculine awkwardness, 
I cut the matter short by drawing out from my pocket- 
book the Panama chain and ring, and placing them in 
her hands. Well as I thought I knew the New-Eng- 
land character, I was not prepared for so quiet a 
reception of this token as she gave it. With a steady 
hand she untwisted the wire fastening of the chain, 
slipped the ring off, and, bending her head, placed it 
reverently on the ring-finger of her left hand, — brief 
but potent ceremony, and over without preface or 
comment, but over for all time. 

Still holding the chain, she offered me a chair, and 
sat down herself, a little paler, a little more grave, 
than on entering. 

“Will you tell me how and where he died, sir?’^ 
said she, evidently having long considered the fact 
in her heart as a fact; probably having heard Seth 
Crane's story of the loss of “ The Louisa Miles.’* 


28 


somebody’s neighbors. 


1 detailed my patient’s tale as briefly and sympathet¬ 
ically as I knew how. The episode of Wailua caused 
a littltr flushing of lip and cheek, a little twisting of the 
ring, as if it were not to be worn after all; but as 1 
told of his sacred care of the trinket for its giver’s 
sake, and the not unwilling forsaking of that island 
wife, the restless motion passed away, and she listened 
quietly to tlie end, only once lifting her left hand to 
her lips, and resting her head on it for a moment, as I 
detailed the circumstances of his death, after supply¬ 
ing what was wanting in his own story, from the time 
of his taking passage in Crane’s ship to their touch¬ 
ing at the island expressly to leave him in the hospital 
when a violent hemorrhage had disabled him from 
further voyaging. 

I was about to tell her I had seen him decently 
buried, of course omitting descriptions of the how and 
where, when the grandmother, who had been watching 
us with the impatient querulousness of age, hobbled 
across the room to ask “what that ’are man was 
a-talkin’ about.” 

• Briefly and calmly, in the key long use had suited to 
her inflrmity, Hetty detailed the chief points of my 
story. 

“Dew tell!” exclaimed the old woman. “Eben 
Jackson a’n’t dead on dryland, is he? Left means, 
eh?” 

I walked away to the door, biting my lip. Hetty, 
for once, reddened to the brow, but replaced her 
charge in the chair, and followed me to the gate. 

“Good-day, sir,” said she, offering me her nand, 
and then, slightly hesitating, “Grandmother is veiy 
old. I thank you, sir. I thank you kindly.” 


. EBEN JACKSON. 


29 


As she turned, and went toward the house, I saw the 
glitter of the Panama chain about her thin and sallow 
throat, and, by the motion of her hands, that she was 
retwisting the same wire fastening that Eben Jackson 
had manufactured for it. 

Five years after, last June, I went to Simsbury with 
a gay picnic party. This time Lizzy was with me; 
indeed, she generally is now. 

I detached myself from the rest, after we were fairly 
arranged for the day, and wandered away alone to 
“ Miss Buel’s.” 

The house was closed, the path grassy, a sweetbrier- 
bush had blown across the door, and was gay with 
blossoms: all was still, dusty, desolate. I could not 
be satisfied with this. The meeting-house was as near 
as any neighbor’s, and the graveyard would ask me no 
curious questions. I entered it doubting; but there, 
“ on the leeward side,” near to the grave of “ Bethia 
Jackson, wife of John Eben Jackson,” were two new 
stones, one dated but a year later than the other, re¬ 
cording the deaths of “Temperance Buel aged 96,” 
and “ Hsster Buel aged 44.” 


MISS LUCINDA. 


But that Solomon is out of fashion, I should quote 
him here and now, to the effect that there is a time for 
all things; but Solomon is obsolete, and never — no, 
never—will I dare to quote a dead language, “for 
raisons I have,’’ as the exiles of Erin say. Yet, in 
spite of Solomon and Horace, I may express my own 
less concise opinion, that even in hard times, and dull 
times, and war times, there is yet a little time to laugh, 
a brief hour to smile and love and pity ; just as through 
this dreary easterly storm, bringing clouds and rain, 
sobbing against casement and door with the inarticulate 
wail of tempests, there comes now and then the soft 
shine of a sun behind it all, a fleeting glitter, an eva¬ 
nescent aspect of what has been. 

But if I apologize for a story that is nowise tragic, 
nor fltted to “the fashion of these times,” possibly 
somebody will say at its end that I should also have 
apologized for its subject, since it is as easy for an 
author to treat his readers to high themes as vulgar 
ones, and velvet can be thrown into a portrait as 
cheaply as calico; but of this apology I wash my 
hands. I believe nothing in place or circumstance 
m.s.kes romance. I have the same quick sympathy 
for Biddy’s sorrows with Patrick that I have for the 
Empress of France and her august but rather grim lord 
30 


MISS LUCINDA. 


31 


and master. I think words are often no harder to 
bear than “ a blue bating; ” and I have a reverence for 
poor old maids as great as for the nine Muses. Com¬ 
monplace people are only commonplace from character, 
and no position affects that. So forgive me once more, 
patient reader, if I offer to you no tragedy in high life, 
no sentimental history of fashion and wealth, but only 
a little story about a woman who could not be a 
heroine. 

INIiss Lucinda Jane Ann Manners was a lady of 
unknown age, who lived in a place I call Dalton, in a 
State of these Disuniting States, which I do not men¬ 
tion for good cause. I have already had so many 
unconscious personalities visited on my devoted head, 
that, but for lucidity, I should never mention persons 
or places, inconvenient as it would be. However, Miss 
Lucinda did live, and lived by the aid of “means,’* 
which in the vernacular is money. Not a great deal, 
it is true, — five thousand dollars at lawful interest, 
and a little wooden house, ^ not imply many luxuries 
even to a single woman; and it is also true that 
a little fine sewing taken in helped Miss Manners to 
provide herself with a few small indulgences otherwise 
beyond her reach. She had one or two idiosyncra¬ 
sies, as they are politely called, that were her delight. 
Plenty of dish-towels were necessary to her peace of 
mind; without five pair of scissors she could not be 
happy; and Tricopherous was essential to her well¬ 
being : indeed, she often said she would rather give up 
coffee than Tricopherous, for her hair was black and 
wiry and curly, and caps she abhorred; so that, of a 
Vinter’s day, her head presented the most irrelevant 
and volatile aspect, each particular hair taking a twist 


32 


somebody’s neighbors. 


on its own responsibility, and improvising a wild halo 
about her unsaintly face, unless subdued into propriety 
by the aforesaid fluid. 

I said Miss Lucinda’s face was unsaintly; I mean ^ 
unlike ancient saints as depicted by contemporary art¬ 
ists : modern and private saints are after another fash¬ 
ion. I met one yesterday, whose green eyes, great 
nose, thick lips, and sallow wrinkles, under a bonnet 
of flfteen years’ standing, further clothed upon by a 
scant merino cloak and cat-skin tippet, would have cut 
a Sony flgure in the gallery of the Vatican or the 
Louvre, and put the tranquil Madonna of San Sisto 
into a state of stunning antithesis. But if St. Agnes 
or St. Catharine was half as good as my saint, I am 
glad of it. 

No, there was nothing sublime and dolorous about 
Miss Manners. Her face was round, cheery, and 
slightly puckered, with two little black eyes sparkling 
and shining under dark brows, a nose she unblushingly 
called pug, and a big mouth, with eminently white and 
regular teeth, which she said were such a comfort, for 
they never ached, and never would to the end of time. 
Add to this physiognomy a small and rather spare 
figure, dressed in the cleanest of calicoes, always made 
in one style, and rigidly scorning hoops, without a 
symptom of a collar, in whose place (or it may be over 
which) she wore a white cambric handkerchief knotted 
about her throat, and the two ends brought into sub¬ 
jection by means of a little angular-headed gold pin, 
her sole ornament, and a relic of her old father’s days 
widowhood, when buttons were precarious tenures. 
So much for her aspect. Her character was even more 
quaint. 


MISS LUCINDA. 


S3 


She was the daughter of a clergyman, one of the 
old school, the last whose breeches and knee-buckles 
adorned the profession, who never “outlived his use¬ 
fulness,” nor lost his godly simplicity. Parson Man¬ 
ners held rule over an obscure and quiet village in the 
wilds of Vermont, where hard-handed farmers wres¬ 
tled with rocks and forests for their daily bread, and 
looked forward to heaven as a land of. green pastures 
and still waters, where agriculture should be a pastime, 
and winter impossible. Heavy freshets from the moun¬ 
tains, that swelled their rushing brooks into annual 
torrents, and snow-drifts that covered five-rail fences 
a foot above the posts, and blocked up the turnpike- 
road for weeks, caused this congregation fully to ap¬ 
preciate Parson Manners’s favorite hymns, — 


and 


“There is a land of pure delight,’^ 

“ On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand.' 


Indeed, one irreverent but “ pretty smart feller,” who 
lived on the top of a hill known as Drift Hill, where 
certain adventurous farmers dwelt for the sake of its 
smooth sheep-pastures, was heard to say, after a 
mighty sermon by Parson Manners about the seven- 
times heated furnaces of judgment reserved for the 
wicked, that “ parson hadn’t better try to skeer Drift- 
Hillers with a hot place : ’twouldn’t more ’n jest warm 
Vm through down there, arter a real snappin’ winter.” 

In this out-of-the-way nook was Lucinda Jane Ann 
born and bred. Her mother was like her in many 
things,—just such a cheery, round-faced little body, 
but with no more mind than found ample scope for 
itself in superintending the affairs of house and farm, 


34 


somebody's neighbors. 


and vigorously “seeing to” her husband and child. 
So, while Mrs. Manners baked, and washed and 
ironed, and sewed and knit, and set the sweetest 
example of quiet goodness and industry to all her 
flock, without knowing she could set an example, or 
be followed as one, the parson amused himself, be¬ 
tween sermons of powerful doctrine and parochial 
duties of a more human interest, with educating Lu¬ 
cinda, whose intellect was more like his own than her 
mother’s. A strange training it was for a young girl, 
— mathematics, metaphysics, Latin, theology of the 
dryest sort; and after an utter failure at Greek and 
Hebrew, though she had toiled patiently through seven 
books of the “^neid,” Parson Manners mildly sniffed 
at the inferiority of the female mind, and betook him¬ 
self to teaching her French, which she learned rapidly, 
and spoke with a pure American accent, perhaps as 
pleasing to a Parisian ear as the hiss of Piedmont or 
the gutturals of Switzerland. Moreover, the minister 
had been brought up himself in the most scrupulous 
refinement of manner: his mother was a widow, the 
last of an “old family;” and her dainty, delicate 
observances were inbred, as it were, in her only son. 
This sort of elegance is perhaps the most delicate test 
of training and descent, and all these things Lucinda 
was taught from the grateful recollection of a son who 
never forgot his mother through all the solitary labors 
and studies of a long life. So it came to pass, that, 
after her mother died, Lucinda grew more and more 
like her father ; and, as she became a woman, these 
rare refinements separated her more and more from 
those about her, and made her necessarily solitary. 
As for marriage, the possibility of such a thing never 


MISS LUCINDA. 


35 


crossed her mind: there was not a man in the parish 
who did not offend her sense of propriety, and shock 
her taste, whenever she met one; and though her 
warm, kin.d heart made her a blessing to the poor and 
sick, her mother was yet bitterly regretted at quiltings 
and tea-drinkings, where she had been so “ sociable- 
lilce ” 

It is rather unfortunate for such a position as Lu¬ 
cinda’s, that, as deacon Stowell one day remarked to 
her father, “ Natur’ will be natur’ as much on Drift 
Hill as down to Bosting; ” and when she began to feel 
that “ strong necessity of loving,” that sooner or later 
assails every woman’s heart, there was nothing for it 
to overflow on when her father had taken his share. 
Now, Lucinda loved the parson most devoutly. Ever 
since the time when she could just remember watching 
through the dusk his white stockings as they glim¬ 
mered across the road to evening meeting, and looked 
like a supernatural pair of legs taking a walk on 
their own responsibility, twilight concealing the black 
breeches and coat from mortal view, Lucinda had 
regarded her father with a certain pleasing awe. His 
long abstractions, his profound knowledge, his grave, 
benign manners, and the thousand daily refinements 
of speech and act that seemed to put him far above 
the sphere of his pastorate, — all these things inspired 
as much reverence as affection; and when she wished 
with all her heart and soul she had a sister or a brother 
to tend and kiss and pet, it never once occurred to her 
that any of those tender familiarities could be expended 
on her father. She would as soon have thought of 
caressing any of the goodly angels, whose stout legs, 
Bowing curls, and impossible draperies, sprawled among 


86 


somebody's neighbors. 


the pietuies in the big Bible, and who excited her won¬ 
der as much by their garments as their turkey-winga 
and brandishing arms. !So she betook herself to pets, 
and growing up to the old maidenhood of thirty-five 
before her father fell asleep, was by that time the 
centre of a little world of her own, — hens, chickens, 
squirrels, cats, dogs, lambs, and sundry transient 
guests of stranger kind; so that when she left her 
old home, and removed to the little house in Dalton 
that had been left her by her mother’s aunt, and had 
found her small property safely invested by means of 
an old friend of her father’s. Miss Manners made one 
more journey to Vermont to bring in safety to their 
future dwelling a cat and three kittens, an old blind 
crow, a yellow dog of the true cur breed, and a rooster 
with three hens, “real creepers,” as she often said, 
“ none of your long-legged, streaming creatures.” 

Lucinda missed her father, and mourned him as 
constantly and faithfully as ever ^ daughter could. 
But her temperament was more cheerful and buoyant 
than his ; and when once she was quietly settled in her 
little house, her garden and her pets gave her such full 
occupation that she sometimes blamed herself for not 
feeling more lonely and unhappy. A little longer life, 
or a little more experience, would have taught her bet¬ 
ter: power to be happy is the last thing to regret. 
Besides, it would have been hard to be cheerless in 
tha;**; sunny little house, with its queer old furniture 
of three-legged tables, high-backed chairs, and chintz 
curtains, where red mandarins winked at blue pagodas 
on a deep yellow ground, and birds of insane orni¬ 
thology pecked at insects that never could have been 
hatched, or perchei themselves on blossoms totally 


MISS LUCINPA. 


37 


unknown to any mortal flora. Old engraTings of 
Bartolozzi, from the stiff elegances of Angelica Kauf¬ 
man and the mythologies of Reynolds, adorned the 
shelf; and the carpet in the parlor was of veritable 
English make, older than Lucinda herself, but as 
bright in its fading, and as firm in its usefulness, as 
she. Up stairs the tiny chambers were decked with 
spotless white dimity, and rush-bottomed chairs stood 
in each window, with a strip of the same old carpex 
by either bedside; and in the kitchen the blue settle 
that had stood by the Vermont fireside now defended 
this lesser hearth from the draught of the door, and 
held under the seat thereof sundry ironing-sheets, the 
blanket belonging to them, and good store of ticking 
and worsted holders. A half-gone set of egg-shell 
china stood in the parlor-closet, — cups and teapot 
rimmed with brown and gold in a square pattern, and a 
shield without blazon on the side ; the quaint tea-caddy 
with its stopper stood over against the pursy little cream- 
pot ; and the three-legged sugar-bowl held amid its 
lumps of sparkling sugar the oddest sugar-tongs, also 
a family relic; beside this, six small spoons, three 
large ones, and a little silver porringer comprised all 
the “plate*’ belonging to Miss Manners, so that no 
fear of burglars haunted her, and, but for her pets, 
she would have led a life of profound and monotonous 
tranquillity. But this was a vast exception: in her 
life her pets were the great item now ; her cat had 
its own chair in the parlor and kitchen; her dog, a 
mg and a basket never to be meddled with by man or 
beast; her old crow, its special nest of flannel and 
cotton, where it feebly croaked as soon as Miss Lu- 
Linda l>egan to spread the little table for her meals; 


38 


somebody’s neighbors. 


and the three kittens had their own playthings and 
their own saucer as punctiliously as if they had been 
children. In fact, Miss Manners had a greater share 
of kindness for beasts than for mankind. A strange 
compound of learning and unworldliness, of queer sim¬ 
plicity, native penetration, and common sense, she had 
read enough books to despise human nature as it 
develops itself in history and theology, and she had not 
Known enough people to love it in its personal devel¬ 
opment. She had a general idea that all men were 
liars, and that she must be on her guard against their 
propensity to cheat and annoy a lonely and helpless 
woman; for, to tell the truth, in her good father’s 
over-anxiety to defend her from the snares of evil men 
after his death, his teachings had given her opinion this 
bias, and he had forgotten to tell her how kindly and 
how true he had found many of his own parishioners, 
how few inclined to harm or pain him. So Miss Lu¬ 
cinda made her entrance into life at Dalton, distrust¬ 
ful, but not suspicious; and, after a few attempts on 
the part of the women who were her neighbors to be 
friendly or intimate, they gave her up as impracticable : 
not because she was impolite or unkind; they did not 
themselves know why they failed, though she could 
have told them; for old maid as she was, poor and 
plain and queer, she could not bring herself to asso¬ 
ciate familiarly with people who put cheir teaspoons 
into the sugar-bowl, helped themselves with their own 
knives and forks, gathered up bits of uneaten butter 
and returned them to the plate for next time, or re¬ 
placed on the dish pieces of cake half eaten, or cut with 
the knives they had just introduced into their mouths 
Miss Lucinda’s code of minor morals would have for 


MISS LUCINDA. 


39 


bidden her to drink from the same cup with a queen, 
and have considered a pitchfork as suitable as a knife 
to eat with; nor would she have offered to a servant 
the least thing she had touched with her own lips or 
her own implements of eating; and she was too deli¬ 
cately bred to look on in comfort where such things 
were practised. Of course these women were not 
ladies; and, though many of them had kind hearts 
and warm impulses of goodness, yet that did not make 
up to her for their social misdemeanors ; and she drew 
herself more into her own little shell, and cared more 
for her garden and her chickens, her cats and her dog, 
than for all the humanity of Dalton put together. 

Miss Manners held her flowers next dearest to her 
pets, and treated them accordingly. Her garden was 
the most brilliant bit of ground possible. It was big 
enough to hold one flourishing peach-tree, one Siberian 
crab, and a solitary egg-plum ; while under these fruit¬ 
ful boughs bloomed moss-roses in profusion, of the 
dear old-fashioned kind, every deep pink bud, with its 
clinging garment of green, breathing out the richest 
odor. Close by, the real white rose, which fashion has 
banished to country towns, unfolded its cups of pearl, 
flushed with yellow sunrise, to the heart; and by its 
side its damask sister waved long sprays of bloom and 
perfume. Tulips, dark-purple and cream-color,, burn¬ 
ing scarlet and deep maroon, held their gay chalices 
up to catch the dew ; hyacinths, blue, white, and pinJr, 
hung heavy bells beneath them; spiced carnations of 
rose and garnet crowded their bed in July and August; 
heart’s-ease fringed the wallas May honeysuckles clam¬ 
bered over the board-fence ; and monthly honeysuckles 
overgrew the porch at the back-door, making perpetual 


40 


somebody’s netghboes. 


fragrance from their moth-like horns of crimson and 
ivory. Nothing inhabited those beds that was not 
sweet and fair and old-fashioned. Gray-lavender* 
bushes sent up purple spikes in the middle of the gar¬ 
den, and were duly housed in winter; but these were 
the sole tender plants admitted, and they pleaded their 
own cause in the breath of the linen-press and the 
bureau-drawers that held Miss Lucinda’s clothes. Be¬ 
yond the flowers, utility blossomed in a row of bean¬ 
poles, a hedge of currant-bushes against the farther 
fence, carefully tended cauliflowers, and onions enough 
to tell of their use as sparing as their number. A few 
deep-red beets and golden carrots were all the vege¬ 
tables beside. Miss Lucinda never ate potatoes or 
pork. 

Her housekeeping, but for her pets, would have been 
the proper housewifery for a fairy. Out of her fruit 
she annually conserved miracles of flavor and trans¬ 
parence, — great plums lilie those in Aladdin’s garden, 
of shining topaz; peaches tinged with the odorous 
bitter of their pits, and clear as amber; crimson crabs 
floating in their own ruby sirup, or transmuted into 
jelly crystal clear, yet breaking with a grain; and 
jelly from the acid currants to garnish her dinner- 
table, or refresh the fevered lips of a sick neighbor. 
It was a study to visit her tiny pantry, where all these 
“ lucent sirops ” stood in tempting array, where spices 
and sugar and tea in their small jars flanked the sweet¬ 
meats, and a jar of glass showed its store of whitest 
honey, and another stood filled with crisp cakes. Here 
always a loaf or two of home-made bread lay rolled in 
a snowy cloth, and another was spread over a dish of 
butter. Pies were not in favor here, nor milk, —save 


MISS LUCINDA. 


41 


for the cats. Salt fish Miss Manners never could abide: 
her savory taste allowed only a bit of rich old 
cheese, or thin scraps of hung beef, with her bread 
and butter. Sauces and spices were few in her reper¬ 
tory ; but she cooked as only a lady can cook, and 
might have asked Soyer himself to dinner. For verily, 
after much meditation and experience, I have divined 
that it takes as much sense and refinement and taient 
to cook a dinner, wash and wipe a dish, make a bed as 
it should be made, and dust a room as it should be 
dusted, as goes to the writing of a novel, or shining in 
high society. 

But because Miss Lucinda Manners was reserved 
and “unsociable,” as the neighbors pronounced her, 
I did not, therefore, mean to imply that she was inhu¬ 
man. No neighbor of hers, local or scriptural, fell ill, 
without an immediate offer of aid from her. She made 
the best gruel known to Dalton invalids, sent the ripest 
fruit and the sweetest flowers; and if she could not 
watch with the sick because it interfered with her duties 
at home in an unpleasant and inconvenient way, she 
would sit with them hour after hour in the day-time, 
and wait on all their caprices with the patient tender¬ 
ness of a mother. Children she always eyed with 
strange wistfulness, as if she longed to kiss them, but 
didn’t know how ; yet no child was ever invited across 
her threshold, for the yellow cur hated to be played 
with, and children always torment kittens. 

So Miss Lucinda wore on happily toward the farther 
side of the middle ages. One after another of her 
pets passed away, and was replaced; the yellow cur 
barked his last currish signal,* the cat died, and her 
kittens came to various ends of time or casualty; tlie 


42 


somebody’s neighboks. 


crow fell away to dust, and was too old to stuff; and 
the garden bloomed and faded ten times over, before 
Miss Manners found herself to be forty-six years old, 
which she heroically acknowledged one fine day to the 
census-taker. But it was not this consciousness, nor 
its confession, that drew the dark brows so low over 
Miss Lucinda’s eyes that day: it was quite another 
trouble, and one that wore heavily on her mind, as we 
shall proceed to explain. For Miss Manners, being, 
like all the rest of her sex, quite unable to do without 
some masculine help, had employed for some seven 
years an old man by the name of Israel plater to do 
her “ chores,” as the vernacular hath it. ilt is a mor¬ 
tifying thing, and one that strikes at the roots of 
women’s rights terribly sharp blows, but I must even 
own it, that one might as well try to live without one’s 
bread and butter as without the aid of the dominant 
sex. When I see women split wood, unload coal-carts, 
move wash-tubs, and roll barrels of flour and apples 
handily down cellar-ways or up into carts, then I shall 
believe in the sublime theories of the strong-minded 
sisters ; but as long as I see before me my own forlorn 
little hands, and sit down on the top stair to recover 
breath, and try in vain to lift the water-pitcher at table, 
just so long I shall be glad and thankful that there are 
men' in the world, and that half a dozen of them are 
my kindest and best friends. It was rather an afflic¬ 
tion to Miss Lucinda to feeF this innate dependence ; 
and at first she resolved to employ only small boys, 
and never any one of them more than a week or two. 
She had an unshaped theory that an old maid was a 
match for a small boy, but that a man would cheat and 
domineer over her. Experience sadly put to fliglu* 


mss LUCINDA. 


43 


these notions ; for a succession of boys in this cabinet 
ministry for the first three years of her stay in Dalton 
would have driven her into a Presbyterian convent, 
had there been one at hand. Boy Number One caught 
the yellow cur out of bounds one day, and shaved his 
plumy tail to a bare stick, and Miss Lucinda fairly 
shed tears of grief and rage when Pink appeared at 
the door with the denuded appendage tucked between 
his little legs, and his funny yellow eyes casting side¬ 
long looks of apprehension at his mistress. Boy Num¬ 
ber One was despatched directly. Number Two did 
pretty well for a month ; but his integrity and his appe¬ 
tite conflicted, and Miss Lucinda found him one moon¬ 
light night perched in her plum-tree devouring the 
half-ripe fruit. She shook him down with as little 
ceremony as if he had been an apple ; and, though he 
lay at death’s door for a week with resulting cholera- 
morbus, she relented not. So the experiment went on, 
till a list of casualties that numbered in it fatal acci¬ 
dents to three kittens, two hens, and a rooster, and at 
last Pink himself, who was sent into a decline by re¬ 
peated drenchings from the watering-pot, put an end 
to her forbearance, and she instituted in her viziership 
the old man who had now kept his office so long, — a 
lueer, withered, slow, humorous old creature, who 
did “ chores ” for some six or seven other households, 
and got a living by sundry “jobs” of wood-sawing, 
hoeing corn, and other like works of labor, if not of 
skill. Israel was a great comfort to Miss Lucinda: 
he was efl3cient counsel in the maladies of all her pets, 
had a sovereign cure for the gapes in chickens, and 
could stop a cat’s fit with the greatest ease; he kept 
tlie tiny garden in perfect order, and was very honest, 


u 


somebody’s neighbors. 


and Jiliss Manners favored him accordingly. She com¬ 
pounded liniment for his rheumatism, herb-sirup for 
his colds, presented him with a set of flannel shirts, 
and knit him a comforter; so that Israel expressed 
himself strongly in favor of “Miss Lucindy,” and 
she said to herself he really was “quite good for a 
man.” 

But just now, in her forty-seventh year, Misa 
Lucinda had come to grief, and all on account of 
Israel, and his attempts to please her. About six 
months before this census-taking era, the old man had 
stepped into Miss Manners’s kitchen with an unusual 
radiance on his wrinkles and in his eyes, and began, 
without his usual morning greeting, — 

“I’ve got so’thin’ for you naow, Miss Lucindy. 
You’re a master-hand for pets ; but I’ll bet a red cent 
you ha’n’t an idee what I’ve got for ye naow! ” 

“I’m sure I can’t tell, Israel,” said she: “you’ll 
have to let me see it.” 

“Well,” said he, lifting up his coat, and looking 
carefully behind him as he sat down on the settle, lest 
a stray kitten or chicken should pre-occupy the bench, 
“ you see I was down to Orrin’s abaout a week back, 
and he hed a litter o’ pigs, —eleven on ’em. Well, he 
couldn’t raise the hull on ’em, — ’t a’n’t good to raise 
mcre’n nine, — an’ so he said ef I’d ’a’ had a place o’ 
my own, I could ’a’ had one on ’em; but as ’twas he 
guessed he’d hev to send one to market for a roaster, 
I went daown to the barn to see ’em; an’ there was 
ime, the cutest little critter I ever sot eyes on, — an’ 
t’ve seen more’n four pigs in my day, — ’twas a little 
black-spotted one, as spry as an ant, and the dreffullest 
knowin' look out of its eyes. I fellowshipped it right 


MISS LUCINDA. 


45 


off ; and I said, says I, ‘ Orrin, ef you’ll let me hev that 
’ere little spotted feller, I’ll git a place for him, for I 
do take to him consarnedly.’ So he said I could, and 
I fetched him hum ; and Miss Slater and me we kinder 
fed him up for a few days back, till he got sorter 
wonted, and I’m a-goin’ to fetch him to you.” 

“ But, Israel, I haven’t any place to put him in.” 

“ Well, that a’n’t nothin’ to hender. I’ll jest fetch 
out them old boards out of the wood-shed, and knock 
up a little sty right off, daown by the end o’ the shed, 
and you ken keep your swill that I’ve hed before, and 
it’ll come handy.” 

“ But pigs are so dirty! ” 

“I don’t know as they be. They ha’n’t no great 
conveniences for washin’ ginerally; but I never heerd 
as they was dirtier’n other critters where they run wild. 
An’ beside, that a’n’t goin’ to hender, nuther. I cal¬ 
culate to make it one o’ the chores to take keer of 
him; ’t won’t cost no more to you, and I ha’n’t no 
great opportunities to do things for foUcs that’s allers 
a-doin’ for me: so ’t you needn’t be afeard, Miss 
Lucindy: I love to.” 

Miss Lucinda’s heart got .the better of her judgment. 
A nature that could feel so tenderly for its inferiors in 
the scale could not be deaf to the tiny voices of human¬ 
ity when they reached her solitude; and she thanked 
Israel for the pig so heartily, that the old man’s face 
brightened still more, and his voice softened from its 
cracked harshness, as he said, clicking up and down 
the latch of the back-door, — 

‘‘Well, I’m sure you’re as welcome as you are 
obleeged, and I’ll knock up that ’ere pen right off. He 
Bha’n’t pester ye any, that’s a fact.’ ’ 


46 


somebody’s neighboks. 


Strange to say, yet perhaps it might have been 
expected from her proclivities, Miss Lucinda took 
an astonishing fancy to the pig. Very few people 
know how intelligent an animal a pig is ; but, when one 
is regarded merely as pork and hams, one’s intellect is 
apt to fall into neglect, — a moral sentiment which 
applies out of pigdom. This creature would not have 
passed muster at a county fair; no Suffolk blood com¬ 
pacted and rounded him : he belonged to the “ racers,’' 
and skipped about his pen with the alacrity of a large 
flea, wiggling his curly tail as expressively as a dog’s, 
and “ all but speakin’,” as Israel said. He was always 
glad to see Miss Lucinda, and established a firm friend¬ 
ship with her dog Fun, — a pretty, sentimental German 
spaniel. Besides, he kept tolerably clean by dint of 
Israel’s care, and thrust his long nose between the 
rails of his pen for grass or fruit, or carrot and beet 
tops, with a knowing look out of his deep-set eyes, 
that was never to be resisted by the soft-hearted spin¬ 
ster. Indeed, Miss Lucinda enjoyed the possession of 
one pet who could not tyrannize over her. Pink’s 
place was more than filled by Fun, who was so oppress¬ 
ively affectionate, that he never could leave his mis¬ 
tress alone. If she lay down on her bed, he leaped up 
and unlatched the door, and stretched himself on the 
white counterpane beside her with a grunt of satisfac¬ 
tion ; if she sat down to knit or sew, he laid his head 
and shoulders across her lap, or curled himself up on 
her knees ; if she was cooking, he whined and coaxed 
round her till she hardly knew whether she fried or 
l«roiled her steak ; and if she turned him out, and but¬ 
toned the door, his cries were so pitiful, she could never 
be resolute enough to keep him in exile five minutes 


MISS LUCINDA. 


47 


tor it was a prominent article in her creed that animals 
have feelings that are easily wounded, and are of like 
passions’’ with men, only incapable of expression. 
Indeed, Miss Lucinda considered it the duty of human 
beings to atone to animals for the Lord’s injustice in 
making them dumb and four-legged. She would have 
been rather startled at such an enunciation of her 
practice, but she was devoted to it as a practice. She 
would give her own chair to the cat, and sit on the 
settle herself; get up at midnight if a mew or a bark 
called her, though the thermometer was below zero; 
the tenderloin of her steak, or the liver of her chicken, 
was saved for a pining kitten or an ancient and tooth¬ 
less cat; and no disease or wound daunted her faithful 
nursing, or disgusted her devoted tenderness. It was 
rather hard on humanity, and rather reversive of Prov¬ 
idence, that all this care and pains should be lavished 
on cats and dogs, while little morsels of flesh and 
blood, ragged, hungry, and immortal, wandered up 
and down the streets. Perhaps that they were immor¬ 
tal was their defence from Miss Lucinda. One might 
have hoped that her “ other-worldliness ” accepted that 
fact as enough to outweigh present pangs, if she had 
not openly declared, to Israel Slater’s immense amuse¬ 
ment and astonishment, that she believed creatures had 
souls, — little ones perhaps, but souls, after all, and 
she did expect to see Pink again some time or other. 

‘‘ Well, I hope he’s got his tail feathered out ag’in,” 
said Israe? dryly. “I do’no’ but what hair’d grow 
as well as ..eathers in a speretooal state, and I never 
see a pictux of an angel out what hed consider’ble 
many feathers.” 

Miss Lucinda looked rather confounded. But hu- 


somebody’s neighbors. 


i8 

manity had one little revenge on her in the shape of her 
cat, — a beautiful Maltese with great yellow eyes, fur 
as soft as velvet, and silvery paws as lovely to look at 
as they were thistly to touch. Toby certainly pleaded 
hard for Miss Lucinda’s theory of a soul: but his was 
no good one ; some tricksy and malign little spirit had 
lent him his share of intellect, and he used it to the 
entire subjugation of Miss Lucinda. When he was 
hungry, he was as well-mannered and as amiable as a 
good child; he would coax and purr, and lick her 
lingers with his pretty red tongue, like a “perfect 
love : ” but when he had his fill, and needed no more, 
then came Miss Lucinda’s time of torment. If she 
attempted to caress him, he bit and scratched like a 
young tiger: he sprang at her from the floor, and fas¬ 
tened on her arm with real fuiy. If he cried at the 
window and was not directly let in, as soon as he had 
achieved entrance his first manoeuvre was to dash at 
her ankles, and bite them if he could, as punishment 
for her tardiness. This skirmishing was his favorite 
mode of attack. If he was turned out of the closet, or 
off the pillow up stairs, he retreated under the bed, and 
made frantic sallies at her feet, till the poor woman 
got actually nervous, and if he was in the room made a 
flying leap as far as she could to her bed, to escape 
those keen claws. Indeed, old Israel found her more 
than once sitting in the middle of the kitchen-floor, 
with Toby crouched for a spring, mider the table, his 
poor mistress afraid to move for fear of her unlucky 
ankles. And this literally cat-ridden woman was 
Dazed about and ruled over by her feline tyrant to that 
extent that he occupied the easiest chair, the softest 
cushion, the middle of the bed, and the front of the 


MISS LUCINDA. 


49 


fire, not only undisturbed, but caressed. This is a 
veritable history, beloved reader, and I offer it as a 
warning and an example. If you will be an old maid, 
or if you can’t help it, take to petting children, or 
donkeys, or even a respectable cow, but beware of 
domestic tyranny in any shape but man’s. 

No wonder Miss Lucinda took kindly to the pig, who 
had a house of his own, and a servant as it were, to 
the avoidance of all trouble on her part, — the pig who 
capered for joy when she or Fun approached, and had 
so much expression in his physiognomy that one almost 
expected to see him smile. Many a sympathizing 
conference Miss Lucinda held with Israel over the per¬ 
fections of piggy, as he leaned against the sty, and 
looked over at his favorite after this last chore was 
accomplished. 

“I say for ’t,” exclaimed the old man one day, 
“I b’lieve that cre’tur’ knows enough to be professor 
in a college. Why, he talks ! he re’lly doos ; a leetle 
through his nose, maybe, but no more’n Dr. Colto^ 
allers does, — ’n’ I declare he appears to have abaout 
as much sense. I never see the equal of him. I 
thought he’d ’a’ larfed right out yesterday when I gin 
him that mess o’ corn. He got up onto his forelegs 
on the trough, an’ he winl^ed them knowin’ eyes o’ 
his’n, an’ waggled his tail, an’ then he set off an’ 
'vij erea round till he come bunt up ag’inst the boards. 
I tell you^ that sorter sobered him. He gin a growlin’ 
grunt, an’ shook his ears, an’ looked sideways at me; 
and then he put to and eet up that corn as sober as a 
judge. I swan! he doos beat the Dutch! ” 

But there was one calculation forgotten, both by Miss 
Lucinda and Israel: the pig would grow, and in conse- 


50 


somebody’s neighbors. 


quence, as I said before, Miss Lucinda came to grief; 
for, when the census-taker tinkled her sharp little 
door-bell, it called her from a laborious occupation at 
the sty, — no more and no less than trying to nail up a 
board that piggy had torn down in struggling to get 
out of his durance. He had grown so large, that Miss 
Lucinda was afraid of him; his long legs and their 
vivacious motion added to the shrewd intelligence of 
his eyes; and his nose seemed as formidable to this 
poor little woman as the tusk of a rhinoceros : but what 
should she do with him? One might as well have pro¬ 
posed to her to kill and cut up Israel as to consign 
piggy to the ‘ ‘ fate of race. ’ ’ She could not turn him 
into the street to starve, for she loved him; and the 
old maid suffered from a constancy that might have 
made some good man happy, but only embarrassed her 
with the pig. She could not keep him forever, that 
was evident. She knew enough to be aware that time 
would increase his disabilities as a pet; and he was an 
expensive one now, for the corn-swallowing capacities 
of a pig, one of the ‘ ‘ racer ’ ’ breed, are almost in¬ 
credible, and nothing about Miss Lucinda wanted for 
food, even to fatness. Besides, he was getting too big 
or his pen; and so “cute’’ an animal could not be 
debarred from all out-door pleasures, and tantalized 
by the sight of a green and growing garden before his 
eyes continually, without making an effort to partake 
of its delights. So, when Miss Lucinda endued herself 
vith her brown linen sack and sun-bonnet to go and 
weed her carrot-patch, she was arrested on the way by 
a loud grunting and scrambling in piggy’s quarter, and 
found, to her distress, that he had contrived to knock off 
the upper boaid from his pen. She had no hammer at 


MISS LUCINDA. 


51 


hand : so she seized a large stone that lay near by, and 
pounded at the board till the twice-tinkling bell recalled 
her to the house ; and, as soon as she had made confes¬ 
sion to the census-taker, she went back — alas, too 
late ! Piggy had redoubled his efforts, another board 
had yielded, and he was free. What a thing freedom 
is! — how objectionable in practice! how splendid in 
theory! More people than Miss Lucinda have been 
put to their wits’ end when “ hoggie ” burst his bonds, 
and became rampant instead of couchant. But he en¬ 
joyed it. He made the tour of the garden on a delight¬ 
ful canter, brandishing his tail with an air of defiance 
that daunted his mistress at once, and regarding her 
with his small bright eyes as if he would before long 
taste her, and see if she was as crisp as she looked. 
She retreated forthwith to the shed, and caught up a 
broom, with which she courageously charged upon 
piggy, and was routed entirely; for, being no way 
alarmed by her demonstration, the creature capered 
directly at her, knocked her down, knocked the broom 
out of her hand, and capered away again to the young 
arro^patch. 

“ Oh, dear! ” said Miss Manners, gathering herself 
up from the ground, “ if there only was a man here ! ” 

Suddenly she betook herself to her heels; for the 
animal looked at her, and stopped eating: that was 
enough to drive Miss Lucinda off the field. And now, 
quite desperate, she rushed through the house, and out 
of the front-door, actually in search of a man. Just 
down the street she saw one. Had she been composed, 
she might have noticed the threadbare cleanliness of 
his dress, the odd cap that crowned his iron-gray locks, 
and the peculiar manner of his walk ; for our little old 


52 


somebody’s neighbors. 


maid had stumbled upon no less a person than Mon¬ 
sieur Jean Leclerc, the dancing-master of Dalton. Not 
that this accomplishment was much in vogue in the 
embryo city; but still there were a few who liked to fit 
themselves for firemen’s balls and sleighing-party frol¬ 
ics, and quite a large class of children were learning 
betimes such graces as children in New England re¬ 
ceive more easily than their elders. Monsieur Leclerc 
had just enough scholars to keep his coat threadbare, 
and restrict him to necessities; but he lived, and was 
independent. All this Miss Lucinda was ignorant of: 
she only saw h man ; and, with the instinct of the sex 
in trouble or danger, she appealed to him at once. 

“O sir! won’t you step in and help me? My pig 
has got out, and I can’t catch him, and he is ruining 
my garden! ” 

“ Madame, I shall I ” replied the Frenchman, bowing 
low, and assuming the first position. 

So Monsieur Leclerc followed Miss Manners, and 
supplied himself with a mop that was hanging in the 
shed as his best weapon. Dire was the battle between 
the pig and the Frenchman. They skipped past each 
other and back again as if they were practising for a 
cotillon. Piggy had four legs, which gave him a cer¬ 
tain advantage; but the Frenchman had most brain, 
and in the long-run brain gets the better of legs. A 
weary dance they led each other; but after a while the 
pet was hemmed in a corner, and Miss Lucinda had 
nm for a rope to tie him, when, just as she returned, 
the beast made a desperate charge, upset his opponent, 
and giving a leap in the wrong direction, to his mani- 
‘'est astonishment landed in his own sty. Miss Lu¬ 
cinda’s courage rose: she forgot her prostrate friend in 


MISS LUCINDA. 


53 


Deed, and, running to the pen, caught up hammer and 
nail-box on her way, and with unusual energy nailed 
up the bars stronger than ever, and then bethought 
herself to thank the stranger. But there he lay quite 
still and pale. 

‘‘Dear me!” said Miss Manners. “I hope you 
haven’t hurt yourself, sir.” 

“I have fear that I am hurt, madame,” said he, 
trying to smile. “ I cannot to move but it pains me.” 

“Where is it? Is it your leg, or your arm? Try 
and move one at a time,” said Miss Lucinda promptly. 

The left leg was helpless, it could not answer to the 
effort; and the stranger lay back on the ground, pale 
with the pain. Miss Lucinda took her lavender-bottle 
out of her pocket, and softly bathed his head and face; 
then she took off her sack, and folded it up under his 
head, and put the lavender beside him. She was good 
at an emergency, and she showed it. 

“ You must lie quite still,” said she. “You must 
not try to move till I come back with help, or your leg 
will be hurt more.” 

With that she went away, and presently returned 
with two strong men and the long shutter of a shop- 
window. To this extempore litter she carefully moved 
the Frenchman; and then her neighbors lifted him, 
and carried him into the parlor, where Miss Lucinda’s 
chintz lounge was already spread with a tight-pinned 
sheet to receive the poor man ; and, while her helpeirs 
put him to bed, she put on her bonnet, and ran for tne 
doctor. 

Dr. Colton did his best for his patient, but pro- 
uounced it an impossibility to remove him till the bone 
should be joined firmly, as a thorough cure was all- 


54 


somebody’s neighbobs. 


essential to his professional prospects. And now, in¬ 
deed, Miss Lucinda had her hands full. A nurse could 
not be afforded; but Monsieur Leclerc was added to 
the list of old Israel’s “ chores,” and what other nurs¬ 
ing he needed Miss Lucinda was glad to do; for her 
kind heart was full of self-reproaches to think it was 
her pig that had knocked down the poor man, and her 
mop-handle that had twisted itself across and under his 
leg, and aided, if not caused, its breakage. So Israel 
came in four or five times a day to do what he could, 
and Miss Lucinda played nurse at other times to the 
best of her ability. Such flavorous gruels and por¬ 
ridges as she concocted ! such tisanes after her guest’s 
instructions! such dainty soups and sweetbreads and 
cutlets, served with such neatness ! After his experi¬ 
ence of a second-rate boarding-house. Monsieur Leclerc 
thought himself in a gastronomic paradise. Moreover, 
these tiny meals were garnished with flowers, which his 
French taste for color and decoration appreciated, — 
two or three stems of lilies-of-the-valley in their folded 
green leaves, cool and fragrant; a moss-rosebud and 
u spire of purple-gray lavender bound together with 
ribbon-grass ; or three carnations set in glittering myr¬ 
tle-sprays, the last acquisition of the garden. 

Miss Lucinda enjoyed nursing thoroughly, and a 
kindlier patient no woman ever had. Her bright needle 
flew faster than ever through the cold linen and flaccid 
cambric of the shirts and cravats she fashioned, while 
he told her, in his odd idioms, stories of his life in 
France, and the curious customs, both of society and 
cuisinerie^ with which last he showed a surprising ac¬ 
quaintance. Truth to tell, when Monsieur Leclerc said 
oe had been a member of the Due de Montmorenci’s 


MISS I-UCINDA. 


55 


nousehold, he withheld the other half of this truth, — 
I'hat he had been his valet-de-chamhre; but it was aia 
hereditary service, and seemed to him as different a 
thing from common servitude as a peer’s oflSce in 
the bed chamber differs from a lackey’s. Indeed, Mon¬ 
sieur Leclerc was a gentleman in his own way, not of 
blood, but of breeding; and while he had faithfully 
served the aristocrats,” as his father had done before 
him, he did not limit that service to their prosperity, 
but in their greatest need descended to menial ofUces, 
and forgot that he could dance and ride and fence 
almost as well as his young master. But a bullet from 
a barricade put an end to his duty there; and he hated 
utterly the democratic rule that had overturned for him 
both past and future: so he escaped, and came to 
America, the grand resort of refugees, where he had 
labored, as he best knew how, for his own support, and 
kept to himself his disgust at the manners and customs 
of the barbarians. Now, for the first time, he was at 
home and happy. Miss Lucinda’s delicate fashions 
suited him exactly. He adored her taste for the beau¬ 
tiful, which she was unconscious of. He enjoyed her 
cookery ; and though he groaned within himself at the 
amount of debt he was incurring, yet he took courage, 
from her kindness, to believe she would not be a hard 
creditor, and, being naturally cheerful, put aside his 
anxieties, and amused himself, as well as her, with his 
stories, his quavering songs, his recipes iov pot-au-feuj 
tisane^ and at once economical and savory. Never 
had a leg of lamb or a piece of roast beef gone so far 
in her domestic experience. A chicken seemed almost 
to outlive its usefulness in its various forms of re-ap¬ 
pearance ; and the salads he devised were as wonderful 


56 


somebody’s neighbors. 


as the omelets he superintended, or the gay dances he 
played on his beloved violin, as soon as he could sit up 
enough to manage it. Moreover,— I should say most- 
over^ if the word were admissible, — Monsieur Leclerc 
lifted a great weight before long from Miss Lucinda's 
mind. He began by subduing Fun to his proper place 
by a mild determination that completely won the dog's 
heart. “ Women and spaniels,” the world knows, “ like 
kicking ; ” and, though kicks were no part of the good 
man’s Rareyfaction of Fun, he certainly used a certain 
amount of coercion, and the dog’s lawful owner ad¬ 
mired the skill of the teacher, and enjoyed the better 
manners of the pupil thoroughly. She could do twice 
as much sewing now, and neVer were her nights dis¬ 
turbed by a bark; for the dog crouched by his new 
friend’s bed in the parlor, and lay quiet there. Toby 
was next undertaken, and proved less amenable to dis¬ 
cipline. He stood in some slight awe of the man who 
tried to teach him, but still continued to sally out at 
Miss Lucinda’s feet, to spring at her caressing hand 
when he felt ill-humored, and to claw Fun’s patient 
nose and his approaching paws, when his misplaced 
sentimentality led him to caress the cat. But, after a 
while, a few well-timed slaps, administered with vigor, 
cured Toby of his worst tricks: though every blow 
made Miss Lucinda wince, and almost shook her good 
opinion of Monsieur Leclerc; for in these long weeks 
he had wrought out a good opinion of himself in her 
mind, much to her own surprise. She could not have 
belie 7ed a man could be so polite, so gentle, so patient, 
and, above all, so capable of ruling without tyranny. 
Miss Lucinda was puzzled. 

One day, as Monsieur Leclerc was getting better 


MISS LUCINDA. 


57 


just able to go about on crutches, Israel came into the 
kitchen, and Miss Manners went out to see him. She 
left the door open ; and along with the odor of a pot of 
raspberry-jam scalding over the fire, sending its steams 
of leaf-and-insect fragrance through the little hoi’se, 
there came in also the following conversation. 

“ Israel,*’ said Miss Lucinda, in a hesitating and 
rather forlorn tone, “ I have been thinking, —I don’t 
know what to do with Piggy. He is quite too big for 
me to keep. I’m afraid of him, if he gets out; and 
he eats up the garden.” 

“ Well, that is a consider’ble swaller for a pig, Miss 
Lucindy; but I b’lieve you’re abaout right abaoul 
keepin’ on him. He is too big, that’s a fact; but 
he’s so like a human cre’tur’, I’d jest abaout as lievea 
slarter Orrin. I declare, I don’t know no more’n a 
taown-house goose what to do with him ! ” 

‘‘ If I gave him away, I suppose he would be fatted 
and killed, of course?” 

“ I guess he’d be killed, likely ; but, as for fattenin’ 
on him, I’d jest as soon undertake to fatten a salt cod¬ 
fish. He’s one o’ the racers, an’ they’re as holler as 
hogsheads. You can fill ’em up to their noses, ef you’re 
a mind to spend your corn, and they’ll caper it all off 
their bones in twenty-four haours. I b’lieve, ef they 
was tiea Meek an’ heels, an’ stuffed, they’d wiggle thin 
betwixt feedin-times. Why, Orrin, he raised nine on 
’em, and every darned critter’s as poor as Job’s turkey 
to-day. They a’n’t no good. I’d as lieves ha’ had 
nine chestnut-rails, an’ a little lieveser’; cause they 
don’t eat nothin’.” 

“ You don’t know of any poor person who’d like to 
have a pig, do you? ” said Miss Lucinda wistfully. 


58 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“Well, the poorer they was, the quicker they’d eat 
him up, I guess, — ef they could eat such a razor- 
back.” 

“ Ch, I don’t like to think of his being eaten! 1 
wish he could be got rid of some other way. Don’t 
you think he might be killed in his sleep, Israel? ” 

This was a little too much for Israel. An irresisti- 
DiC flicker of langhter twitched his wrinkles, and bub¬ 
bled in his throat. 

“I th’ink it’s likely ’twould wake him up,” said he 
demurely. “Killin’s killin’, and a cre’tur’ can’t 
sleep over it’s though ’twas the stomach-ache. I 
guess he’d kick some, ef he was asleep — and screech 
some too! ” 

Dear me ! ” said Miss Lucinda, horrifled at the idea. 
“I wish he could be sent out to run in the woods. 
Are there any good woods near here, Israel? ” 

“ I don’t know but what he’d as lieves be slartered 
to once as to starve, an’ be hunted down out in the 
lots. Besides, there a’n’t nobody as I knows of would 
like a hog to be a-rootin’ round amongst theii* turnips 
and young wheat.” 

“Well, what I shall do with him I don’t know! ” 
despairingly exclaimed Miss Lucinda. “ He was such 
a dear little thing when you brought him, Israel! Do 
you remember how pink his pretty little nose was, — 
just like a rose-bud, — and how bright his eyes looked, 
and his cunning legs? And now he’s grown so big 
and flerce ! But I can’t help liking him, either.” 

“He’s a cute critter, that’s sartain; but he does 
too much rootin’ to have a pink nose now, I expect: 
there’s consider’ble on’t, so I guess it looks as well to 
have it gray. But I don’t know no more’n you do 
what to do abaout it.” 


MISS LUCINDA. 


59 


“If I could only get rid of him without knowing 
what became of him! exclaimed Miss Lucinda, 
squeezing her forefinger with great earnestness, and 
looking both puzzled and pained. 

“If Mees Lucinda would pairmit?^* said a voice 
behind her. 

She turned round to see Monsieur Leclerc on hia 
crutches, just in the parlor-door. 

“ I shall, mees, myself dispose of piggee, if it 
please. I can. I shall have no sound: he shall to 
go away like a silent snow, to trouble you no more, 
never! ” 

“ O sir, if you could ! But I don’t see how.” 

“If mees was to see, it would not be to save her 
pain. I shall have him to go by magique to fiery 
land.” 

Fairy-land probably. But Miss Lucinda did not 
perceive the equivoque. 

“Nor yet shall I trouble Meester Israyel. I shall 
have the aid of myself and one good friend that I 
have ; and some night, when you rise of the morning, 
he shall not be there.” 

Miss Lucinda breathed a deep sigh of relief. 

“ I am greatly obliged,—I shall be, I mean,” said 
she. 

“Well, I’m glad enough to wash my Lands on’t,” 
said Israel. “ I shall hanker arter the critter some, 
but he’s a-gettin’ too big to be handy; ’n’ it’s one 
comfort abaout critters, you ken get rid on ’em some- 
haow when they’re more plague than profit. But 
folks has got to be let alone, excep’ the Lord takes 
’em ; an’ he don’t allers see fit.” 

What added point and weight to these final remarks 


60 


somebody’s neighbors. 


of old Israel was the well-known fact that he suf* 
fered at home from the most pecking and worrying of 
wives, and had been heard to say, in some moment ol 
unusual frankness, that he “ didn’t see how ’t could 
be sinful to wish Miss Slater was in heaven, for she’d 
CO lots better off, and other folks too.” 

Miss Lucinda never knew what befell her pig one 
fine September night: she did not even guess that a 
visit paid to monsieur by one of his pupils, a farmer’s 
daughter just out of Dalton, had any thing to do with 
this enlevement. She was sound asleep in her bed up 
stairs, when her guest shod his crutches with old 
gloves, and limped out to the garden-gate by dawn, 
where he and the farmer tolled the animal out of his 
sty, and far down the street, by tempting red apples, 
and then Farmer Steele took possession of him, and 
.he was seen no more. No, the first thing Miss Lu- 
c.inda knew of her riddance was when Israel put his 
Head into the back-door that same morning, some four 
hours afterward, and said with a significant nod, — 

“ He’s gone ! ” 

After all his other chores were done, Israel had a 
conference with Monsieur Leclerc; and the two sallied 
into the garden, and in an hour had dismantled the 
low dwelling, cleared away the wreck, levelled and 
smoothed its site, and monsieur, having previously 
provided himself with an Isabella grape-vine, plantcf] 
it on this forsaken spot, and trained it carefully againsl 
the end of the shed: strange to say, though it was 
against all precedent to transplant a grape in Septem¬ 
ber, it lived and fiourished. Miss Lucinda’s gratitudr 
to Monsieur Leclerc was altogether disproportioned 
as he thought, to his slight service. He could no‘ 


MISS LUCINDA. 


61 


understand fully her devotion to her pets; but he re¬ 
spected it, and aided it whenever he could, though he 
never surmised the motive that adorned Miss Lucinda’s 
table with such delicate superabundance after the late 
departure, and laid bundles of lavender-flowers in his 
tiny portmanteau till the very leather seemed to gather 
fragrance. 

Before long Monsieur Leclerc was well enough to 
resume his classes, and return to his boarding-house; 
but the latter was filled, and only offered a prospect of 
vacancy in some three weeks after his application: so 
he returned home somewhat dejected; and as he sat 
by the little parlor-fire after tea, he said to his hostess 
in a reluctant tone, — 

“ Mees Lucinda, you have been of the kindest to 
the poor alien. I have it in my mind to relieve you of 
this care very rapidly, but it is not in the Fates that I 
do. I have gone to my house of lodgings, and they 
cannot to give me a chamber as yet. I have fear that 
I must yet rely me on your goodness for some time 
more, if you can to entertain me so much more of 
time ? ’ ’ 

“Why, I shall lilie to, sir,” replied the kindly, sim¬ 
ple-hearted old maid. “I’m sure you are not a mite 
of trouble, and I never can forget what you did for my 
pig*'’ 

A smile flitted across the Frenchman’s thin dark 
face, and he watched her glittering needles a few min 
utes in silence before he spoke again. 

“But I have other things to say of the most un¬ 
pleasant to me, Mees Lucinda. I have a great debt 
for the goodness and care you to me have lavished. 
To the angels of the good Gk)d we must submit to be 


62 


somebody’s neighbors. 


debtors; but there are also of mortal obligations. i 
have lodged in your mansion for more of ten weeks, 
and to you I pay yet no silver ; but it is that I have it 
not at present. I must ask of your goodness to wait.” 

The old maid’s shining black eyes grew soft as she 
looked at him. 

Why,” said she, “ I don’t think you owe me much 
of any thing, Mr. Leclerc. I never knew things last as 
they have since you came. I really think you brought 
a blessing. I wish you would please to think you don’t 
owe me any thing.” 

The Frenchman’s great brown eyes shone with sus¬ 
picious dew. 

“ I cannot to forget that I owe to you far more than 
any silver of man repays; but I should not think to 
forget that I also owe to you silver, or I should not be 
worthy of a man’s name. No, mees! I have two 
hands and legs. I will not let a woman most solitary 
spend for me her good self. ’ ’ 

“ Well,” said Miss Lucinda, “ if you will be uneasy 
till you pay me, I would rather have another kind of 
pay than money. I should like to know how to dance. 
I never did learn when I was a girl, and I think it 
would be good exercise.” 

Miss Lucinda supported this pious fiction through 
with a simplicity that quite deceived the Frenchman. 
He did not think it so incongruous as it was. He had 
seen women of sixty, rouged and jewelled and furbe- 
.owed, foot it deftly in the halls of the Faubourg St. 
Germain in his earliest youth ; and this cheery, healthy 
woman, with lingering blooms on either cheek, and 
uncapped head of curly black hair but slightly strewn 
with silver, seemed quite as fit a subject for the accom. 


MISS LUCINDA. 


62 


plishment. Besides, he was poor; and this offered 
BO easy a way of paying the debt he had so dreaded! 
Well said Solomon, “The destruction of the poor is 
their poverty.’’ For whose moral sense, delicate sen¬ 
sitiveness, generous longings, will not sometimes give 
way to the stringent need of food and clothing, the gall 
of inde])tedness, and the sinking consciousness of an 
empty purse and threatening possibilities ? 

Monsieur Leclerc’s face brightened. 

“ Ah, with what grand pleasure shall I teach you the 
dance! ” 

But it fell dark again as he proceeded, — 

“Though not one, nor two, nor three, nor four 
quarters shall be of value sufficient to achieve my pay¬ 
ment. ’ ’ 

“Then, if that troubles you, why, I should like to 
take some French lessons in the evening, when you 
don’t have classes. I learned French when I was quite 
a girl, but not to speak it very easily; and if I could 
get some practice, and the right way to speak, I should 
be glad.” 

‘ ‘ And I shall give you the real Parisien tone, Mees 
Lucinda,” said he proudly. “I shall be as if it were 
no more an exile when I repeat my tongue to you.” 

And so it was settled. Why Miss Lucinda should 
learn French any more than dancing was not a question 
in Monsieur Leclerc’s mind. It is true that Chaldaic 
would, in all probability, be as useful to our friend as 
French; and the flying over poles, and hanging by toes 
and fingers, so eloquently described by apostles of the 
body, would have been as well adapted to her style 
and capacity as dancing. But his own language, and 
Uis own profession! — what man would not havo 


64 


SOMEBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 


regarded these as indispensable to improvement, par¬ 
ticularly when they paid his board ? 

During the latter three weeks of Monsieur Leclerc’s 
stay with Miss Lucinda, he made himself sm’prisingly 
useful. He listed the doors against approaching winter 
breezes; he weeded in the garden, trimmed, tied, 
trained, wherever either good office was needed, mend* 
ed china with an infallible cement, and rickety chairs 
with the skill of a cabinet-maker; and, whatever hard 
or dirty work he did, he always presented himself at 
table in a state of scrupulous neatness. His long brown 
hands showed no trace of labor ; his iron-gray hair was 
reduced to smoothest order; his coat speckless, if 
threadbare ; and he ate like a gentleman, — an accom¬ 
plishment not always to be found in the “ best society,’* 
as the phrase goes : whether the best in fact ever lacks 
it is another thing. Miss Lucinda appreciated these 
traits ; they set her at ease ; and a pleasanter home-life 
could scarce be painted than now enlivened the little 
wooden house. But three weeks pass away rapidly; 
and when the rusty portmanteau was gone from her 
spare chamber, and the well-worn boots from the 
kitchen-corner, and the hat from its nail. Miss Lucinda 
began to find herself wonderfully lonely. She missed 
the armfuls of wood in her wood-box that she had to 
fill laboriously, two sticks at a time; she missed the 
other plate at her tiny round table, the other chair be¬ 
side her fire; she missed that dark, thin, sensitive 
face, with its rare and sweet smile; she wanted her 
story-teller, her yarn-winder, her protector, back again. 
Good gracious ! to think of an old lady of forty-seven 
entertaining such sentiments for a man. 

Presently the dancing-lessons commenced. It waa 


MISS LUCINDA. 


65 


thought advisable that Miss Manners should enter a 
class, and in the fervency of her good intentions she 
did not demur. But gratitude and respect had to 
strangle with persistent hands the little serpents of the 
ridiculous in Monsieur Leclerc’s soul when he beheld 
his pupil’s first appearance. What reason was it, O 
rose of seventeen! adorning thyself with cloudy films 
of Uce and sparks of jewelry before the mirror that 
reflects youth and beauty, that made Miss Lucinda 
array herself in a brand-new dress of yellow muslin-de 
laine strewed with round green spots, and displace her 
customary handkerchief for a huge tamboured collar, 
on this eventful occasion ? Why, oh, why! did she tie 
up the roots of her black hair with an unconcealable 
scarlet string? And, most of all, why was her dress so 
short, her slipper-strings so big and broad, her thick 
slippers so shapeless, by reason of the corns and 
bunions that pertained to the feet within? The “in¬ 
stantaneous rush of several guardian angels” that 
once stood dear old Hepzibah Pynchon in good stead 
was wanting here; or perhaps they stood by all¬ 
invisible, their calm eyes softened with love deeper 
than tears, at this spectacle so ludicrous to man, be¬ 
holding in the grotesque dress and adornments only 
the budding of life’s divinest blossom, and in the 
strange skips and hops of her first attempts at dancing 
only the buoyancy of those inner wings that goodness 
and generosity and pure self-devotion were shaping for 
a future strong and stately flight upward. However, 
men, women, and children do not see with angelic eyes, 
and the titterings of her fellow-pupils were irrepressible. 
One bouncing girl nearly choked herself with her hand¬ 
kerchief, trying not to laugh; and two or three did not 


66 


somebody’s neighbors. 


even try. Monsieur Leclerc could not blame them. At 
first he could scarce control his own facial muscles ; but 
a sense of remorse smote him, as he saw how uncon¬ 
scious and earnest the little woman was, and remem¬ 
bered how often those knotty hands and knobbed feet 
had waited on his need or his comfort. Presently he 
tapped on his violin for a few moments’ respite, and 
approached Miss Lucinda as respectfully as if she had 
been a queen. 

“ You are ver’ tired, Mees Lucinda? ” said he.. 

“I am a little, sii',” said she, out of breath. “I 
am not used to dancing: it’s quite an exertion.” 

“It is that truly. If you are too much tired, is it 
better to wait ? I shall finish for you the lesson till I 
come to-night for a French conversation ? ’ ’ 

“ I guess I will go home,” said the simple little lady. 
“ I am some afraid of getting rheumatism. But use 
makes perfect, and I shall stay through next time, no 
doubt.” 

“ So I believe,” said monsieur, with his best bow, 
as Miss Lucinda departed and went home, pondering 
all the way what special delicacy she should provide 
for tea. 

“My dear young friends,” said Monsieur Leclerc, 
pausing with the uplifted bow in his hand, before he 
recommenced his lesson, “ I have observe that my new 
pupil does make you much to laugh. I am not so sur¬ 
prise ; for you do not know all, and the good God does 
not robe all angels in one manner. But she have taken 
me to her mansion with a leg broken, and have nursed 
me like a saint of the blessed, nor with any pay of 
silver, except that I teach her the dance and the French. 
They ^je pay for the meat and the drink ; but she wiL 


MISS LUCINDA. 


67 


have no more for her good patience and care. I like 
to teach you the dance; but she could teach you the 
saints* ways, which are better. I think you will no 
more to laugh.*’ 

“No, I guess we won*tI” said the bouncing girl 
with great emphasis; and the color rose over more than 
one young face. 

After that day Miss Lucinda received many a kind 
smile and hearty welcome, and never did anybody ven¬ 
ture even a grimace at her expense. But it must be 
acknowledged that her dancing was at least peculiar. 
With a sanitary view of the matter, she meant to make 
it exercise; and fearful was the skipping that ensued. 
She chassed on tiptoe, and balanced with an indescrib¬ 
able hopping twirl, that made one think of a chickadee 
pursuing its quest of food on new-ploughed ground; 
and some late-awakened feminine instinct of dress, 
restrained, too, by due economy, endued her with the 
oddest decorations that woman ever devised. The 
French lessons went on more smoothly. If Monsieur 
Leclerc’s Parisian ear was tortured by the barbarous 
accent of Vermont, at least he bore it with heroism, 
since there was nobody else to hear ; and very pleasant, 
both to our little lady and her master, were these long 
winter evenings, when they diligently waded through 
Racine, and even got as far as the golden periods of 
Chateaubriand. The pets fared badly for petting in 
these days ; they were fed and waited on, but not with 
the old devotion. It began to dawn on Miss Lucinda’s 
mind that something to ta^k to was preferable, as a 
companion, even to Fun, and that there might be a 
stranger sweetness in receiving care and protection 
than in giving it. 


68 


somebody’s neighbors. 


Spring came at last. Its softer skies were as blue 
over Dalton as in the wide fields without, and its foot¬ 
steps as bloom-bringing in Miss Lucinda’s garden as 
in mead or forest. Now Monsieur Leclerc came to 
her aid again at odd minutes, and set her flower-beds 
with mignonette-borders, and her vegetable-garden 
with salad-herbs of new and flourishing kinds. Yet 
not even the sweet season seemed to hmTy the catas¬ 
trophe, that we hope, dearest reader, thy tender eyes 
have long seen impending. No ; for this quaint alliance 
a quainter Cupid waited ; the chubby little fellow with 
a big head and a little arrow, who waits on youth and 
loveliness, was not wanted here. Lucinda’s god of 
love wore a lank, hard-featured, grizzly shape, no 
less than that of Israel Slater, who marched into the 
garden one fine June morning, earlier than usual, to 
find monsieur in his blouse, hard at work weeding the 
cauliflower-bed. 

“ Good-mornin’, sir, good-mornin’ I ” said Israel, in 
answer to the Frenchinan’s greeting. “ This is a real 
slick little garden-spot as ever I see, and a pootty 
house, and a real clever woman too. I’ll be skwitched 
ef it a’n’t a fust-rate consarn, the hull on’t. Be you 
ever a-goin’ back to France, mister? ” 

‘‘ No, my goot friend. I have nobody there. I 
stay here. I have friend here ; but there, — o7i, non I 
je ne reviendraipas! ah, jamais, jamais!** 

“Pa’s dead, eh? or shamming? Well, I don’t un¬ 
derstand your lingo ; but, ef you’re a-goin’ to stay here, 
I don’t see why you don’t hitch bosses with Misa 
Lucindy.” 

Monsieur Leclerc looked up astonished. 

“ Horses, my friend? I have no horse.” 


MISS LUCINDA. 


69 


“ Thunder ’n’ dry trees ! I didn’t say you hed, did 
I? But that comes o’ usin’ what Parson Hyde calls 
figgurs, I s’pose. I wish’t he’d use one kind o’ figgur- 
in’ a le^tle more: he’d pay me for that wood-sawin’. 
I didn’t mean nothin’ about bosses. I sot out fur to 
say, Why don’t ye marry Miss Lucindy ? ” 

“I?” gasped monsieur, — “I, the foreign, the 
poor? I could not to presume so ! ” 

“Well, I don’t see’s it’s sech drefful presumption. 
Ef you’re poor, she’s a woman, and real lonesome 
too : she ha’n’t got nuther chick nor child belongin’ to 
her, and you’re the only man she ever took any kind 
of a notion to. I guess ’twould be jest as much for 
her good as yourn.” 

“Hush, good Is-ray-el! it is good to stop there. 
She would not to marry after such years of goodness. 
She is a saint of the blessed.” 

“Well, I guess saints sometimes fellerships with 
sinners ; I’ve heerd tell they did: and, ef I was you, 
I’d make trial for’t. Nothin’ ventur’, nothin’ have.” 
Whereupon Israel walked off, whistling. 

Monsieur Leclerc’s soul was perturbed within him 
by these suggestions. He pulled up two young cauli¬ 
flowers, and reset their places with pigweeds ; he hoed 
the nicely sloped border of the bed flat to the path, and 
then flung the hoe across the walk, and went off to his 
daily occupation with a new idea in his head. Nor 
was it an unpleasant one. The idea of a transition 
from his squalid and pinching boarding-house to the 
de.-icate comfort of Miss Lucinda’s menage^ the pros¬ 
pect of so kind and gooa a wife to care for his hitherto 
dreaded future, — all this was pleasant. I cannot hon¬ 
estly say he was in love with our friend: I must even 


70 


somebody’s neighbors. 


confess that whatever element of that nature existed 
between the two was now all on Miss Lucinda’s side* 
little as she knew it. Certain it is, that when she 
appeared that day at the dancing-class in a new green 
calico flowered with purple, and bows on her slix-)- 
pers big enough for a bonnet, it occurred to Monsieur 
Leclerc, that, if they were married, she would take no 
more lessons. However, let us not blame him. He was 
a man, and a poor one ; one must not expect too much 
from inen or from poverty : if they are tolerably good, 
let us canonize them even, it is so hard for the poor 
creatures! And, to do Monsieur Leclerc justice, he 
had a very thorough respect and admiration for Miss 
Lucinda. Years ago, in his stormy youth-time, there 
had been a pair of soft-fringed eyes that looked into 
his as none would ever look again. And they mur¬ 
dered her, those mad wild beasts of Paris, in the 
chapel where she knelt at her pure prayers, —murdered 
her because she knelt beside an aristocrat, her best 
friend, the Duchess of Montmorenci, who had taken 
the x^retty peasant from her own estate to bring her up 
•’or her maid. Jean Leclerc had lifted that x^ale shape 
from the i:)avement, and buried it himself : what else he 
buried with it was invisible. But now he recalled the 
hour with a long, shuddering sigh, and, hiding his face 
in his hands, said softly, “ The violet is dead : there is 
no spring for her. I will have now an amaranth: it 
is good for the tomb.” 

Whether Miss Lucinda’s winter dress suggested this 
floral metaphor, let us not inquire. Sacred be senti¬ 
ment, when there is even a shadow of reality about 
it: when it becomes a profession, and confounds it¬ 
self with’ millinery, and shades of mourning, it is 
“ bosh,” as the Turkeys say. 


MISS LUCINDA. 


71 


So that very evening Monsieur Leclerc. arrayed him- 
seil in his best to give another lesson to Miss Lucinda. 
But, somehow or other, the lesson was long in begin¬ 
ning. The little parlor looked so homelike and so pleas¬ 
ant, with its bright lamp and gay bunch of roses on 
the table, that it was irresistible temptation to lounge 
and linger. Miss Lucinda had the volume of Florian 
in her hands, and was wondering why he did not 
begin, when the book was drawn away, and a hand 
laid on both of hers. 

“Lucinda,” he began, “I give you no lesson to¬ 
night. I have to ask. Dear mees, will you to marry 
your poor slave ? ’ ’ 

“ Oh, dear! ” said Miss Lucinda. 

Don’t laugh at her. Miss Tender-eyes. You will 
feel just so yourself some day, when Alexander 
Augustus says, “Will you be mine, loveliest of your 
sex? ” Only you won’t feel it half so strongly, for you 
are young, and love is nature to youth; but it is a 
heavenly surprise to age. 

Monsieur Leclerc said nothing. He had a heart, 
after all, and it was touched now by the deep emotion 
that flushed Miss Lucinda’s face, and made her tremble 
BO violently ; but presently he spoke. 

“Do not,” said he. “I am wrong. I presume. 
Forgive the stranger.” 

“ Oh, dear! ” said poor Lucinda again. “ Oh! you 
Know it isn’t that; but how can you like me?** 

There, mademoiselle, there’s humility for you! you 
will never say that to Alexander Augustus. 

Monsieur Leclerc soothed this frightened, happy, 
incredulous little woman into quiet oefore very long; 
and, if he really began to feel a true affection for her 


72 


somebody’s neighbors. 


from the moment he perceived her humble and entire 
devotion to him, who shall blame him? Not I. If we 
were all heroes, who would be valet-de-cliambre? If 
we were all women, who would be men ? He was very 
good as far as he went; and, if you expect the chival¬ 
ries of grace out of nature, you “may expect,” as 
old Fuller saith. So it was peacefully settled that they 
should be married, with a due amount of tears and 
smiles on Lucinda’s part, and a great deal of tender 
sincerity on monsieur’s. She missed her dancing- 
lesson next day ; and, when Monsieur Leclerc came in 
the evening, he found a shade on h6r happy face. 

“ Oh, dear! ” said she, as he entered. 

“Oh, dear!” was Lucinda’s favorite aspiration. 
Had she thought of it as an Anglicizing of “ 0 Dieu!^* 
perhaps she would have dropped it; but this time she 
went on headlong, with a valorous despair, — 

“ I have thought of something. I’m afraid I can’t! 
Monsieur, aren’t you a Romanist? ” 

“ What is that? ” said he, surprised. 

“A Papist, a Catholic.” 

“Ah!” he returned, sighing, “once I was bon 
Catholique^ — once in my gone youth ; after then I was 
nothing but the poor man who bats for his life ; now I 
am of the religion that shelters the stranger, and binds 
up the broken poor. ’ ’ 

Monsieur was a diplomatist. This melted Miss Lu¬ 
cinda’s orthodoxy right down : she only said, — 

‘ ‘ Then you will go to church with me ? ” 

“And to the skies above, I pray,” said monsieur, 
kissing her knotty hand like a lover. 

So in the earliest autumn they were married, mon- 
sieiT having previously presented Miss Lucinda with *a 


MISS LUCINDA. 


73 


delicate plaided gray silk for her wedding attue, in 
which she looked almost young; and old Israel ^vras 
present at the ceremony, which was briefly performed 
by Parson Hyde in Miss Manners’s parlor. They did 
not go to Niagara, nor to Newport; but that afternoon 
Monsieur Leclerc brought a hired rockaway to the 
door, and took his bride a drive into the country. 
They stopped beside a pair of bars, where monsieur 
liitched his horse, and, taking Lucinda by the hand, 
ied her into Farmer Steele’s orchard, to the foot of his 
biggest apple-tree. There she beheld a little mound, 
at the head and foot of which stood a daily rose-bush 
shedding its latest wreaths of bloom, and upon the 
mound itself was laid a board, on which she read, — 

“ Here lie the bones of poor piggy.” 

Mrs. Lucinda burst into tears; and monsieur, pick¬ 
ing a bud from the bush, placed it in her hand, and led 
her tenderly back to the rockaway. 

That evening Mrs. Lucinda was telling the affair to 
old Israel with so much feeling, that she did not per¬ 
ceive at all the odd commotion in his face, till, as she 
repeated the epitaph to him, he burst out with, “He 
didn’t say what become o’ the flesh, did he?” and 
therewith fled through the kitchen-door. For years 
afterward Israel would entertain a few favored audi¬ 
tors with his opinion of the matter, screaming till the 
tears rolled down his cheeks, — 

“ That was the beateree of all the weddin’-towers I 
ever heerd tell on. Goodness! it’s enough to make 
the Wanderin’ Jew die o’ larfin’.” 


DELY’S COW. 

I WENT down to the farmyard one day last month ^ 
and as I opened the gate I heard Pat Malony say, 
“Biddy, Biddy! I thought at first he was calling a 
hen ; but then I r<imembered the hens were all shut into 
the poultry-house that day, to be sorted, and numbered, 
and condemned. So I looked again, thinking perhaps 
Pat’s little lame sister had strayed up from the village, 
and gone into the barn after Sylvy’s kittens, or a 
pigeon-egg, or to see a new calf; but, to my surprise, 
I saw a red cow, of no particular beauty or breed, 
coming out of the stable-door, looking about her as if in 
search of somebody or something ; and when Pat called 
again, “Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!” the creature walked 
up to him across the yard, stretched out her awkwaid 
neck, sniffed a little, and cropped from his hand the 
wisp of rowen hay he held, as composedly as if she 
were a tame kitten, and then followed him all round 
the yard for more, which I am sorry to say she did not 
get. Pat had only displayed her accomplishments to 
astonish me, and then shut her in her stall again. I 
afterward hunted out Biddy’s history, and here it is. 

On the Derby turnpike, just before you enter Haner- 
ford, everybody that ever travelled that road will re 
member Joseph German’s bakery. It was a red brick 
aouse, with dusty windows toward the street, and jus 
u 


dely’s cow. 


75 


inside the door a little shop, where Mr. German retailed 
the scalloped cookies, fluted gingerbread, long loaves 
of bread, and scantily-fllled pies in which he dealt, and 
which were manufactured in the long shop, where in 
summer you caught glimpses of flour barrels all a-row, 
and men who might have come out of those barrels, 
so strewed with flour were all their clothes, — paper 
cap and white apron scarcely to be distinguished from 
the rest of the dress as far as color and dustiness went. 
Here, too, when her father drove out the cart every 
afternoon, sitting in front of the counter with her sew¬ 
ing or her knitting, Dely German, the baker’s pretty 
daughter, dealt out the cakes, and rattled the pennies 
in her apron-pocket, with so good a grace, that not a 
young farmer came into Hanerford with grain, or 
potatoes, or live-stock, who did not cast a glance in at 
the shop-door going toward town, and go in on his 
return, ostensibly to buy a sheet of gingerbread, or a 
dozen cookies, for his refreshment on the drive home¬ 
ward. It was a curious thing to see how much hungrier 
they were on the way home than coming into town. 
Though they might have had a good dinner in Haner¬ 
ford, that never appeased their appetites entirely; 
while in the morning they had driven their slow teams 
all the way without so much as thinking of cakes and 
cheese. So by the time Dely was seventeen, her black 
eyes and bright cheeks were well known for miles 
about; and many a youth, going home to the clean 
kitchen where his old mother sat by the fire, knitting, 
or his spinster sister scolded and scrubbed over his 
muddy boot-tracks, thought how pretty it would look 
to see Dely German sitting on the other side, in lier 
neat calico frock and white apron, her black hair 


76 


somebody’s neighbors. 


shining smooth, and her fresh, bright face looking a 
welcome. 

But Dely did not think about any one of them in a 
reciprocal manner. She liked them all pretty well; but 
she loved nobody except her father and mother, her 
three cats and all their kittens, the big dog, the old 
horse, and a wheezy robin that she kept in a cage, 
because her favorite cat had half killed it one day, and 
it never could fly any more. For all these dumb things 
she had a really intense affection. As for her father 
and mother, she seemed to be a part of them : it never 
occurred to her that they could leave her, or she them ; 
and when old Joe German died one summer day, just 
after Dely was seventeen, she was nearly distracted. 
However, people who must work for their living have 
to get over their sorrows practically much sooner than 
those who can afford time to indulge them ; and, as 
Dely knew more about the business and the shop than 
anybody but the foreman, she had to resume her place 
at the counter before her father had been buried a 
week. It was a great source of embarrassment to her 
rural admirers to see Dely in her black frock, pale and 
sober, when they went in. They did not know what to 
say: they felt as if their hands and feet had grown 
very big all at once, and as if the cents in their pockets 
never could be got at, at which they turned red and hot, 
and got choked, and went away, swearing internally 
at their own blundering shyness, and deeper smitten 
than ever with Dely, because they wanted to comfort 
her so very much, and didn’t know how. 

One, however, had the sense and simplicity to know 
how ; and that was George Adams, a flne, healthy young 
fellow from Hartland Hollow, who came in at leas? 


dely’s cow. 


77 


once a week with a load of produce from the farm on 
which he was head man. The first time he went after 
his rations of gingerbread, and found Dely in her 
mourning, he held out his hand, and shook hers heartily. 
Dely looked up into his honest blue eyes, and saw 
them full of pity. 

“I’m real sorry for you,” said George. “My 
gather died two years ago.” 

Dely burst into tears; and George couldn’t help 
stroking her bright hair softly, and saying, “Oh, 
don’t!” So she wiped her eyes, and sold him the 
cookies he wanted; but from that day theie was one 
of Dely’s customers that she liked best, one team of 
white horses she always looked out for, and one voice 
that hurried the color into her face if it was ever so 
pale; and the upshot of pity and produce and ginger¬ 
bread was that George Adams and Dely German were 
heartily in love with each other, and Dely began to 
be comforted for her father’s loss six months after he 
died. Not that she knew why, or that George had 
ever said any thing to her more than was kind and 
friendly; but she felt a sense of rest, and yet a sweet 
restlessness, when he was in her thoughts or presence, 
that beguiled her grief, and made her unintentionally 
happy. It was the old, old story, — the one eternal 
novelty that never loses its vitality, its interest, its 
bewitching power, nor ever will till time shall be no 
more. 

But the year had not elapsed, devoted to double 
crape and triple jjuilliYgs, before Dely’s mother, too, 
began to be con;joled- She was a pleasant, placid, 
^eeble-natured woman, ^-ho liked her husband very 
i^ell, and fretted at 'n a mUd, persistent way a 


78 


somebody’s neighbors. 


good deal. He swore, and chewed tobacco, which 
annoyed her; he also kept a tight gi’ip of his money, 
which was not pleasant: but she missed him very much 
when he died, and cried and rocked, and said how 
afflicted she was, as much as was necessary, even in 
the neighbors’ opinion. But, as time went on, she 
found the business very hard to manage : even with Dely 
and the foreman to help her, the ledger got all astray, 
and the day-book followed its example. So when old 
Tom Kenyon, who kept the tavern half a mile farther 
out, took to coming Sunday nights to see the “ Widder 
German,” and finally proposed to share her troubles, 
and carry on the bakery in a matrimonial partnership, 
Mrs. German said she “guessed she would,” and an¬ 
nounced to Dely on Monday morning that she was 
going to have a step-father. Dely was astonished and 
indignant, but to no purpose. Mrs. German cried 
and rocked, and rocked and cried again, rather more 
saliently than when her husband died. But for all 
that she did not retract; and in due time she got into 
the stage with her elderly lover, and went to Meriden, 
where they got married, and came home next day to 
carry on the bakery. 

Joe German had been foolish enough to leave all his 
property to his wife ; and Dely had no resource but to 
stay at home, and endure her disagreeable position as 
well as she could, for Tom Kenyon swore and chewed, 
and smoked beside : moreover, he drank' — not to real 
drunkenness, but enough to make him cross and in¬ 
tractable." Worse than all, he had a son, the only child 
of his first marriage ; and it soon became unpleasantly 
evident to Dely, that Steve Kenyon had a mind t<s 
marry her, and his father had a mind he should. Now, 


dely’s cow 


79 


it is all very well to marry a person one likes; but to 
go through that ceremony with one you dislilie is more 
than anybody has a right to require, in my opinion, aa 
well as Dely’s : so when her mother urged upon her the 
various advantages of the match, — Steve Kenyon being 
the present master and prospective owner of his father’s 
tavern, a great resort for horse-jockeys, cattle-dealers, 
and frequenters of state and county fairs,—Dely still 
objected to marry him. But, the more she objected, the 
more her mother talked; her step-father swore; and 
the swaggering lover persisted in his attentions at all 
times ; so that the poor girl had scarce a half-hour to 
herself. She grew thin and pale and unhappy enough ; 
and one day George Adams, stepping in unexpectedly, 
found her with her apron to her eyes, crying most 
bitterly. It took some persuasion, and some more 
daring caresses than he had yet ventured on, to get 
Dely’s secret trouble to light. I am inclined to think 
George kissed her at least once before she would tell 
him what she was crying about. But Dely naturally 
came to the conclusion, that if he loved her enough to 
kiss her, and she loved him enough to lilie it, she might 
as well share her troubles; and the consequence was, 
George asked her then and there to share his. Not 
that either of them thought there would be troubles 
under that copartnership, for the day was sufficient to 
them ; and it did not daunt Dely in the least to know 
that George’s only possessions were a heifer calf, a 
suit of clothes, and twenty dollars. 

About a month after this eventful day, Dely went 
into Hanerford on an errand, she said: so did George 
Adams. They stepped into the minister’s together, 
and were maiwied : so Delv’s errand was done, and she 


80 


somebody’s neighbors. 


rode out on the front-seat of George’s empty wagon, 
stopping at the bakery to tell her mother, and get her 
trunk ; having wisely chosen a day for her errand when 
her step-father had gone away after a load of flour 
down to Hanerford whaiwes. Mrs. Kenyon went at 
once into wild hysterics, and called Dely a jade-hopper 
and an ungrateful child. But not understanding the 
opprobrium of the one term, and not deserving the 
other, the poor girl only cried a little, and helped 
George with her trunk, which held all she could call 
her own in the world, — her clothes, two or three cheap 
trinkets, and a few books. She kissed the cats all 
round, hugged the dog, was glad her robin had died, 
and then said good-by to her mother, who refused to 
kiss her, and said George Adams was a snake in the 
grass. This was too much for Dely: she wiped her 
eyes, and clambered over the wagon-wheel, and took 
her place beside George with a smile so much like cry¬ 
ing, that he began to whistle, and never stopped for two 
miles. By that time they were in a piece of thick pine- 
woods, when, looking both before and behind to be 
certain no one was coming, he put his arm round his 
wife and kissed her, which seemed to have a consoling 
effect; and, by the time they reached his mother’s little 
house, Dely was as bright as ever. 

A little bit of a house it was to bring a wife to, but 
it suited Dely. It stood on the edge of a pine-wood, 
where the fragrance of the resinous boughs kept the air 
sweet and pure, and their leaves thrilled responsive tc 
every breeze. The nouse was very small and very red 
It had two rooms belovr, and one above; l>ut it was 
neater than many a five-story mansion, and far more 
cheerful. And, when Dely went in at the door, she 


jjely’s cow. 


81 


thought there could be no prettier sight than the ex¬ 
quisitely neat old woman sitting in her arm-chair on 
one side of the fireplace, and her beautiful cat on the 
other, purring and winking, while the tea-kettle sang 
and sputtered over the bright fire of pine-cones, ana 
tiie tea-table at the other side of the room was spread 
with such clean linen, and such shining crockery, that 
it made one hungry even to look at the brown-bread 
and butter, and pink radishes, that were Dely’s wed¬ 
ding-supper. 

It is very odd how happy people can be when they 
are as poor as poverty, and don’t know where to look 
for their living, but to the work of their own hands. 
Genteel poverty is horrible. It is impossible for one to 
be poor and elegant, and comfortable ; but downright, 
simple, unblushing poverty may be the most blessed of 
states. And though it was somewhat of a descent in 
the social scale for Dely to marry a farm-hand, fore¬ 
man though he might be, she loved her George so 
devoutly and healthily, that she was as happy as a 
woman could be. George’s mother, the sweetest and 
tenderest mother to him, took his wife to a place beside 
his in her heart; and the two women loved each other 
the more for this man’s sake. He was a bond between 
them, not a division. Hard work left them no thought 
of rankling jealousy to make their lives bitter; and 
Dely was happier than ever she had thought she should 
be away from her mother. Nor did the hard work hurt 
her; for she took to her own share all of it that was 
ou’. of doors, and troublesome to the infirmities of the 
old lady. She tended the calf in its little log-hut, 
shook down the coarse hay for its bed, made its gruel 
till it grew beyond gruel, then di'ove it daily to the 


82 


somebody’s neighbors. 


pasture where it fed, gave it extra rations of bread and 
apple-parings and carrot-tops, till the creature knew 
her voice, and ran to her call like a pet kitten, rubbing 
its soft, wet nose against her red cheek, and showing 
in a dozen blundering, calfish ways that it both knew 
and loved her. 

There are two sorts of people in the world,—those 
who love animals, and those who do not. I have seen 
them both, I have known both; and if sick or op¬ 
pressed, or borne down with dreadful sympathies for a 
groaning nation in mortal struggle, I should go for aid, 
for pity, or the relief of kindred feeling, to those I had 
seen touched with quick tenderness for the lower crea¬ 
tion, who remember that the “ whole creation travaileth 
in pain together,” and who learn God’s own lesson of 
caring for the fallen sparrow, and the ox that treadeth 
out the corn. With men or women who despise ani¬ 
mals, and treat them as mere beasts and brutes, I never 
want to trust my weary heart or my aching head. But 
with Dely I could have trusted both safely; and the 
calf and the cat agreed with me. 

So, in this happy, homely life, the sweet centre of 
aer own bright little world, Dely passed the first year 
of her wedded life, and then the war came! Dread¬ 
ful pivot of so many lives ! — on it also this rude idyl 
turned. George enlisted for the war. 

It was not in Dely or his mother to stop him. 
Though tears fell on every round of his blue socks, and 
sprinkled his flannel shirts plentifully; though the oid 
woman’s wan and wrinkled face paled and saddened, 
and the young one’s fair throat quivered with choking 
sobs when they wer-e alone; still, whenever George 
appeared, he was greeted with smiles and cheer, 


dely’s cow. 


83 


strengthened and steadied from this home armory 
better than with sabre and bayonet, — ‘ ‘ with might in 
the inner man.’’ George was a brave fellow, no doubt, 
and would do good service to his free country; but it 
is a question with me, whether, when the Lord calls out 
his “noble army of martyrs” before the universe of 
men and angels, that army will not be found officered 
and led by just such women as these, who fought 
silently with the flesh and the Devil by their OT\n 
hearth, quickened by no stinging excitement of battle, 
no thrill of splendid strength and fury in soul and 
body, no tempting delight of honor or even recognition 
from their peers, upheld only by the dull, recurrent 
necessities of duty and love. 

At any rate, George went, and they staid. The 
town made them an allowance as a volunteer’s family; 
they had George’s bounty to begin with ; and a friendly 
boy from the farm near by came and sawed their wood, 
iook care of the garden, and, when Dely could not go 
CO pasture with the heifer, drove her to and fro daily. 

After George had been gone three months, Dely had 
a little baby. Tiny and bright as it was, it seemed 
like a small star fallen down from some upper sky to 
lighten their darkness. Dely was almost too happy; 
and the old grandmother, fast slipping into that other 
world whence baby seemed to have but newly arrived, 
stayed her feeble steps a little longer to wait upon her 
son’s child. Yet, for all the baby, Dely never forgot 
her dumb loves. The cat had still its place on the 
foot of her bed; and her flrst walk was to the barn, 
where the heifer lowed welcome to her mistress, and 
rubbed her head against the hand that caressed her, 
with as much feeling as a cow can show, however 


84 


SOMEBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 


much she may have. And Biddy the heifer was a 
good friend to that little household all through that 
long ensuing winter. It went to Dely’s heart to sell 
her hrst calf to the butcher; but they could not raise 
it: and when it was taken away she threw her check 
ap.’t)n over her head, and buried her face deep in the 
pillow, that she might not hear the cries of appeal ami 
grief her favorite uttered. After this, Biddy would 
let no one milk her but her mistress ; and many an 
inarticulate confidence passed between the two while 
the sharp streams of milk spun and foamed into the 
pail below, as Dely’s skilful hands coaxed it down. 

They heard from George often. He was well, and 
busy with drill and camp life, — not in active service 
as yet. Incidentally, too, Dely heard of her mother. 
Old Kenyon was dead of apoplexy, and Steve like to 
die of drink. This was a bit of teamster’s gossip, but 
proved to be true. Toward the end of the winter, old 
Mother Adams slept quietly in the Lord. No pain or 
sickness grasped her, though she knew she was dying, 
kissed and blessed Dely, sent a mother’s message to 
George, and took the baby for the last time into her 
arms; then she laid her head on the pillow, smiled, 
and drew a long breath — no more. 

Poor Dely’s life was very lonely. She buried her 
dead out of her sight, wrote a loving, sobbing letter to 
George, and began to try to live alone. Hard enough 
it was. March revenged itself on the past toleration 
of winter: snow fell in bli nding fury; and drifts hid 
the fences, and fenced the doors, all through Hartland 
Hollow. Day after day Dely struggled tlirough the 
path to the barn to feed Biddy, and milk her; and a 
warm mess of bread and milk often formed her only 


DELY'S COW. 


85 


meal in that bitter weather. It is not credible to 
those who think no more of animals than of chairs and 
stones, how much society and solace they afford to 
those who do. love them. Biddy was really Dely^s 
friend. Many a long day passed when no human face 
]:ut tlie baby’s greeted her from dawn till dusk. Bn* 
the cow’s beautiful purple eyes always turned to wel¬ 
come her as she entered its shed-door ; her wet muzzle 
touched Dely’s cheek with a velvet caress ; and, while 
her mistress drew from the downy bag its white and 
rich stores, Biddy would turn her head round, and eye 
her with such mild looks, and breathe such fragrance 
toward her, that Dely, in her solitary and friendless 
state, came to regard her as a real sentient being, capa¬ 
ble of love and sympathy, and had an affection for her 
that would seem utter nonsense to half, perhaps three- 
quarters, of the people in this unsentimental world. 
Many a time did the lonely little woman lay her head 
on Biddy’s neck, and talk to her about George, with 
sobs and silences interspersed; and many a piece of 
dry bread steeped in warm water, or golden carrot, or 
mess of stewed turnips and bran, flavored the dry hay 
that was the staple of the cow’s diet. The cat was 
old now, and objected to the baby so strenuously, that 
Dely regarded her as partly insane from age; and 
though she was kind to her of course, and fed her 
faithfully, still a cat that could growl at George’s baby 
was not regarded with the same complacent kindness 
that had always blessed her before ; and, whenever the 
baby was asleep at milking-time, pussy was locked into 
the closet, — a proceeding she resented. Biddy, on 
tlie contrary, seemed to admire the child, — she cer¬ 
tainly did not object to her, — and necessarily obtained 


somebody’s neighbors. 


thereby a far higher place in Dely’s heart than the 
cat. 

As I have already said, Dely had heard of her step¬ 
father’s death some time before ; and one stormy day, 
the last week in March, a team coming from Haner- 
ford with grain stopped at the door of the little red 
house, and the driver handed Dely a dirty and ill- 
written letter from her mother. Just such an epistle 
it was as might have been expected from Mrs. Kenyon, 
— full of weak sorrow, and entreaties to Dely to come 
home and live : she was old and tired ; the bakery was 
coming to trouble for want of a good manager; the 
foreman was a rogue, and the business failing fast, 
and she wanted George and Dely there. Evidently she 
had not heard, when the letter began, of George’s de¬ 
parture, or baby’s birth ; but the latter half said, “Cum 
anyway. I want to se the baby. Ime an old critur 
a-sinking into my graiv, and when george cums back 
from the wars he must liv hear the rest off his life.” 

Dely’s tender heart was greatly stirred by the letter, 
yet she was undecided what to do. Here she was, 
alone and poor ; there would be her mother, — and she 
loved her mother, though she could not respect her; 
there, too, was plenty for all: and, if George should 
ever come home, the bakery business was just the 
thing for him; he had energy and courage enough to 
redeem a sinking affair like that. But then what 
should she do with the cow ? Puss could go home with 
her; but Biddy? — there was no place for Biddy. 
Pasture was scarce and dear about Hanerford : Dely’s 
father had given up keeping a cow long before his 
death for that reason. But how could Dely leave and 
iell her faithful friend and companion? Her hear* 


DELY S COW. 


87 


sank at the thought: it almost turned the scale, for 
one pitiful moment, against common sense and filial 
feeling. But baby coughed, nothing more than a 
slight cold; yet Dely thought, as she had often 
thought before, with a quick thrill of terror. What if 
baby were ever sick ? Seven miles between her and 
tlie nearest doctor; nobody to send, nobody to leave 
baby with, and she herself utterly inexperienced in the 
care of children. The matter was decided at once; 
and, before the driver who brought her mother’s letter 
had come on his next journey for the answer he had 
offered to carry, Dely’s letter was written, sealed, and 
put on the shelf, and she was busy contriving and 
piecing out a warm hood and cloak for baby to ride in. 

But every time she went to the barn to milk Biddy, 
or feed her, the tears sprang to her eyes, and her mind 
misgave her. Never before had the dainty bits of food 
been so plentiful for her pet, or her neck so tenderly 
stroked. Dely had written to her mother that she 
would come to her as soon as her affairs were settled, 
and she had spoken to Orrin Nye, who brought the 
letter, to find a purchaser for her cow. Grandfather 
Hollis, who bought Biddy, and in whose farmyard I 
made her acquaintance, gave me the drover’s account 
of the matter, which will be better in his words than 
mine. It seems he brought quite a herd of milch cows 
down to Avondale, which is twenty miles from IIaner> 
ford, and, hearing that grandfather wanted a couple of 
cows, he came to “trade with him,” as he expressed 
it. He had tw:> beautiful Ayrshires in the lot, — clean 
heads, shining skins, and good milkers, — that mightily 
pleased the old gentleman’s fancy; for he had long 
brooded over his favorite scheme of a pure-biooded 


88 


somebody's neighboes. 


herd, and the red-and-white-clouded Ayrshires showed 
})eautifully on his green hillside pastures, and were 
good stock besides. But Aaron Stow insisted so per¬ 
tinaciously that he should buy this red cow, that the 
squire shoved his hat back, and put both his hands in 
his pockets, a symptom of determination with him, and 
began to question him. They fenced a while in true 
Yankee fashion, till at last grandfather became exas¬ 
perated. 

“Look, here, Aaron Stow!’’ said he, “what in 
thunder do you pester me so about that cow for? 
She’s a good enough beast, I see, for a native; but 
those Ayrshires are better cows and better blood, and 
you know it. What are you navigating round me for 
so glib?” 

“Well, now, squire,” returned Aaron, whittling at 
the gate with sudden vehemence, “ fact is, I’ve set my 
mind on your buyin’ that critter, an’ you jes’ set down 
on that ’ere milkin’-stool, an’ I’ll tell ye the rights 
on’t, though I feel kinder meechin’ myself, to be so 
soft about it as I be.” 

“Leave off shaving my new gate, then, and don’t 
think I’m going to trust a hundred and eighty-five solid 
flesh to a three-legged stool. I’m too old for that. 
I’ll sit on the step here. Now go ahead, man.” 

So grandfather sat down on the step, and Aaron 
turned his back against the gate, and kicked one boot 
on the other. He was not used to narration. 

“ Well, you know we had a dreadful spell o’ weather 
a month ago, squire. There ha’n’t never been such a 
March in my day as this last; an’ ’twas worse up our 
way’n ’twas here; an’ down to Hartland Holler was 
the beat of all. Why, it snowed, an’ it blowed, an’ it 


DELY’S COW. 


89 


friz, till all natiir’ couldn’t stan’ it no more. Well, 
about them days I was down to Hartland Centre 
a-buyin’ some fat cattle for Ilanerford market; an' I 
met Orrin Nye drivin’ his team pretty spry, for he see 
it was cornin’ on to snow; but, when he catched sight 
o’ me, he stopped the horses, an’ hollered out to me; 
so I stepped along, an’ asked what he wanted. An’ he 
said there was a woman down to the Holler that had a 
cow to sell, an’ he knowed I was apt to buy cow-critters 
along in the spring, so he’d spoke about it, for she was 
kinder in a hurry to sell, for she was goin’ to move. 
So I said I’d see to’t, an’ he driv along. I thought 
likely I should git it cheap, ef she was in a hurry to 
sell, an’ I concluded I’d go along next day: ’twa’n’t 
more’n seven mile from the Centre, down by a piece 
o’ piny woods, an’ the woman was Miss Adams. I 
used ter know George Adams quite a spell ago, an’ he 
was a likely feller. Well, it come on to snow jes^ as 
fine an’ dry as sand, an’ the wind blew like needles ; 
an’ come next day, when I started to foot it down 
there, I didn’t feel as though I could ha’ gone ef I 
hadn’t been sure of a good bargain. The snow hadn’t 
driv much, but the weather had settled down dreadful 
cold: ’twas dead still, an’ the air sorter cut ye to 
breathe it; but I’m naterally hardy, an’ I kep’ along 
dll I got there. I didn’t feel so all-fired cold as I hev 
fcometimcs ; but when I stepped in to the door, an’ she 
asked me to hev a cheer by the fire, fust I knew I 
didn’t know nothin’ : I come to the floor like a felled 
ox. I expect I must ha’ been nigh on to dead with 
clear cold, for she was the best part o’ ten minutes 
bringin’ on me to. She rubbed my hands an’ face 
with camphire, an’ gin me some liot tea. She hadn’t 



90 


somebody's neighbors. 


got no sperits in the house ; but she did every thing a 
little f7oman could do, an’ I was warmed through an’ 
through afore long, an’ we stepped out into the shed to 
look at the cow. 

“Well, squire, I ha’n’t got much natur’ into me 
noway, an’ it’s well I ha’n’t; but that cow beat all, I 
declare for’t! She put her head round the minute 
Miss Adams come in; an’, if ever you see a dumb 
beast pleased, that ’ere cow was tickled to pieces. She 
put her nose down to the woman’s cheek, an’ she licked 
her hands, an’ she moved up agin’ her, an’ rubbed her 
ear on her: she all but talked. An’ when I looked 
round, an’ see them black eyes o’ Miss Adams’s with 
wet in ’em, I ’most wished I had a pocket-handker- 
cher myself. 

“ ‘ You won’t sell her to a hard master, will you? ’ 
says she. ‘ I want her to go where she’ll be well cared 
for^ an’ I shall know where she is ; for, if ever things 
comes right agin, I want to hev her back. She’s been 
half my livin’ an’ all jny company for quite a spell, an’ 
I shall miss her dreadfully.’ 

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘I’ll take her down to Squire 
Hollis’s in Avondale : he’s got a cow-barn good enough 
for a representative to set in, an’ clean water, an’ 
chains to halter ’em up with, an’ a dry yard where the 
water all dreens off as slick as can be ; an’ there a’n’t 
such a piece o’ laud nowhere round for root-crops ; an’ 
the squire he sets such store by his cows an’ things, 
I’ve heerd tell he turned off two Irishmen for abusin’ 
on ’em; an’ they has their bags washed, an’ their tails 
combed, every day in the year, an’ I don’t know but 
what they ties ’em up with a blew ribbin.’ ” 

“ Get out! ” growled grandfather. 


dely’s cow. 


91 


“Can’t, jest yet, squii’e, not till I’ve done. Any¬ 
way, I figgered it off to her, an’ she was kinder con¬ 
soled up to think on’t; for I told her I thought lil^ely 
you’d buy her cow. An’ when we come to do the 
tradin’ part, why, con-found it! she wa’n’t no more fit 
to buy an’ sell a critter than my three-year-old Hepsy. 
I said a piece back I ha’n’t got much natur’, an’ a man 
that trades dumb beasts the biggest part o’ the time 
hedn’t oughter hev ; but I swan to man ! natur’ was too 
much for me this time. I couldn’t no more ha’ bought 
that cow cheap than I could ha’ sold my old gran’ther 
to a tin-peddler. Somehow, she was so innocent, an’ 
she felt so to part with the critter, an’ then she let me 
know’t George was in the army; an’ thinks I, I guess 
I’ll help the gov’ment along some: I can’t fight, ’cause 
I’m subject to rheumatiz in my back, but I can look 
out for them that can : so, take the hull on’t, long an’ 
broad, why, I up an’ gin her seventy-five dollars for 
that cow, an’ I’d ha’ gin twenty more not to ha’ seen 
Miss Adams’s 'face a-lookin’ arter me an’ her when we 
went away from the door. 

“ So now, squire, you can take her, or leave her.” 

Aaron Stow knew his man. Squire Hollis pulled 
out his pocket-book, and paid seventy-five dollars on 
the spot for a native cow called Biddy. 

“Now clear out with your Ayrshires! ” said he 
irascibly. “ I’m a'fool, but I won’t buy them too.” 

“ Well, squire, good-day,” said Aaron with a grin. 

But I am credibly informed that the next week he 
did come back with the two Ayrshires, and sold them 
to grandfather, remarking to the farmer, that he 
‘ ‘ should ha’ been a darned fool to take the old gentle¬ 
man at his word; for he never knowed a man hanker 


92 


somebody’s neighbors. 


arter harnsome stock, but what lie bought it fust oi 
last. ’ ’ 

Now I also discovered that the regiment George en¬ 
listed in was one whose colonel I knew well: so I 
wrote, and asked about Sergeant Adams. IVIy report 
wa's highly honorable to George, but had some bad 
news in it: he had been severely wounded in the right 
leg, and, though recovering, would be disabled from 
further service. A fortnight after, I drove into Haner- 
ford with Grandfather Hollis, and we stopped at the 
old bakery. It looked exquisitely neat in the shop, as 
well as prosperous externally, and Dely stood behind 
the counter with a lovely child in her arms. Grand¬ 
father bought about half a bushel of crackers and 
cookies, while I played with the baby. As he paid for 
them, he said in his kind old voice, that nobody can 
hear without pleasure, — 

“I believe I have a pet of yours in my bam at 
Avondale, Mrs. Adams.’* 

Dely’s eyes lighted up, and a quick flush of feeling 
glowed on her pretty face. 

“O sir! you did buy Biddy, then? And you are 
Squire Hollis? ” 

“Yes, ma’am ; and Biddy is well, and well cared for, 
-— as fat and sleek as a mole, and still comes to her 
name.” 

“Thank you kindly, sir!” said Dely, with an em¬ 
phasis that gave the simple phrase most earnest mean¬ 
ing. 

“And how is your husband, Mrs. Adams? ” said I. 

A deeper glow displaced the fading blush grand¬ 
father had called out, and her beautiful eyes flashed af 
me. 


dely's cow. 


93 


“Quite well, I thank you, and not so very lame. 
A^nd he’s coming home next week.” 

She took the baby from me as she spoke, and, look¬ 
ing in its bright little face, said, — 

“Call him, baby.” 

“ Pa-pa ! ” said the child. 

“ If ever you come to Avondale, Mrs. Adams, come 
and see my cows,” said grandfather as he gathered up 
the reins. “You may be sure I won’t sell Biddy to 
anybody but you.” 

Dely smiled from the steps where she stood ; and we 
drove away. 


SQUIRE PAINE’S CONVERSION. 

Samuel Paine was a hard-headed, “ hard-fe’tured' 
Yankee boy, who grew up in the old homestead with 
out brothers or sisters. 

Had any of those means of grace shared his joys 
and sorrows, perhaps his nature would have been modi 
fied; but he was sole heir of the few rugged acres, 
scant pasturage for the old red cow, and the bit of 
‘ ‘ medder-land ’ ’ that reluctantly gave corn and rye 
and potatoes enough for the household, and barely hay 
sufficient to winter the cow and the venerable horse 
that belonged to old Dibble Paine, Samuel’s father. 
Now, in such a case it is slave or starve in New Eng¬ 
land. Hard work is the initial lesson. Samuel’s 
youth of labor began early. At three years old, in 
brief garments of yellow flannel, and a flaxen thatch 
of hair for head-covering, he toddled in and out of the 
kitchen with chips in a basket; he fed the chickens ; 
lie rode in the hay-wagon, and was, moreover, ruled 
already with a rod of iron, or rather a stout shingle, 
which hung ready to hand by the chimney-piece. At 
seven the Assembly’s Catechism was drilled into 
him, and he trudged daily a mile and back to the red 
schoolhouse, doing “chores” at every odd interval; 
getting up by daylight in summer, and long before in 
winter, to fetch and carry for the poor, pale woman 
94 


SQUIRE PAINE’S CONVERSION. 


9^ 


who was wife aud mother in that meagre household; 
going to meeting Sundays as faithfully as Parson 
Wires himself; and in the course of years growing up 
to be a goodly youth, saving, industrious, correct, per¬ 
fectly self-satisfied, and conscious of his own merits 
and other people’s demerits. 

But the course of years takes as well as gives. 
When Samuel was twenty, he was fatherless and moth¬ 
erless. The old farm was let on shares; and behind 
the counter of a country store in Bassett he dealt out 
with strict justice — to his employer — scant yards of 
calico, even measures of grass-seed, small pounds 
of groceries, weakly rum, sugar not too sweet, and 
many other necessities of life in the same proportion. 
Old Si Jones never had so thrifty a clerk, never made 
so much money in the same time, and never had so 
few loungers about. In due time Samuel experienced 
religion,—or said he did, — was duly examined, glibly 
reeled off his inward exercises to the admiring deacons, 
and at the proper season was propounded, and admitted 
to the church in Bassett. He had always been a 
strictly moral young man, and a sober one ; not in the 
sense of temperance, but sober in habit and manner. 

Samuel Paine never indulged in those youthful gaye- 
ties that so many boys rejoice in. He did not waste 
his hard-earned substance in riotous picnics, husking- 
frolics, boat-rides, or sleighing-parties; he never used 
obacco in any form, never drank cider, or “ waited ” 
3n any girl in Bassett, though there was the usual 
feminine surplus of a New-England village in this one. 
In the evening he read law diligently in Squire Lap 
kin’s office, because he thought it might be useful to 
him hereafter. He sat in the singers’ seat in the meet- 


96 


somebody’s ^^ElUDBOKS. 


ing-house, his straight, long face, cold gray eyes, 
sleek light hair, and immaculate linen, looking re¬ 
spectable enough for a whole congregation. He had 
a class in Sunday school, — a class of big girls, all of 
whom hated him thoroughly, but never dared own it. 
Armed with “Barnes’s Notes” and “ Cruden’s Con 
cordance,” he did his duty to his class in explaining 
and expounding the doctrine of the lesson ; but, while 
he impressed the letter on their minds, the sweet and 
living spirit never lit his cool eye, or warmed his accu¬ 
rate speech. Whatever else those young girls learned 
of Samuel Paine, they never learned to love the Lord 
or his words ; for he knew not how to teach them. His 
soul had never yet found its level, had never had the 
lesson that comes to us all some time in our lives, 
whether we accept it or not; and he went on in his own 
narrow way without let or hinderance. 

Before Samuel was twenty-five. Si Jones retired from 
business in Bassett, being persuaded by his wife to 
remove into Vermont, where her friends lived. He 
had made a good deal of money; and being childless, 
and well under his wife’s thumb, she had induced him 
to sell out, and go back to her old home. Now came 
the time Samuel Paine had long looked for. He had 
saved, spared, pinched, to this end. He bought out 
ae store and the small frame-house that contained it, 
— a house with two rooms up stairs, and a kitchen in 
the little wing. Part of the money he paid down in 
cash, part borrowed on a mortgage: the rest he was 
forced to give notes for. 

“ \Yell,” said ’Bijah Jones, a far-off cousin of Si’s, 
And the village loafer and joker, “ guess folks’ll hev tc 
keep their eyes peeled now. I tell ye, Samwell Paine 


SQUIRE PAINE’S CONVERSION. 


97 


beats the Dutch to drive a bargain. Ye won’t know 
where ye be, fust ye know any thing. He’ll sell ye a 
pair o’ store pants in five minnits, when ye don’t want 
’em zio more’n a toad wants a pocket.” 

“ Dew tell! ” sputtered old Grandsir Baker, who had 
just come over from the town-house with a hank of 
yarn to trade off for some molasses. “WeR, well, 
well! Hows’ever, he can’t sell me nothin’, cos I 
hain’t got no money. Ye can’t get blood outen a stun, 
nohow. He, he, he ! ” 

“ Blessed be nothin’ ! ” dryly put in ’Bijah. 

And all this while Samuel was announcing his prin¬ 
ciples in the store to a knot of farmers,and village 
worthies come in for their weekly supplies for the first 
time since S. Paine’s name had been seen above the 
door. 

“Yes, sir; yes, sir! I’ve cleaned up consider’ble. 
I hope to clear up more. I ’xpect to conduct this 
business on a line, gentlemen, — a straight line, so to 
speak, seemin’ly, as it were. There ain’t no rewl better 
for all things than the Golden Eewl. That contains 
the sperrit and principle of the hull thing: do’s you’d 
like ter be done by. That’s my idee in short partikelar 
metre.” 

A dry, rattling laugh emphasized this conclusion, 
and a sort of unwilling “Haw, haw!” chorussed it 
from the audience. ’Bijah Jones had drawn near 
enough to the open door to hear part of the sentence, 
and grinned widely. 

“ Come along, grandsir,” shouted he to the hobbling 
j)ld fellow from the poor-house. “ Strike while th’ 
iron’s hot. He’s talking Scripter with all fury : naow’s 
your time to swop that air yarn. Bet you’ll git a hull 
cask o’ ’lasses ! ” 


98 


somebody’s neighbors. 


Grandsir Baker did not quicken his halting pace for 
this advice, and it is not on record that he got any 
more molasses than he expected to: but, when he got 
back to the poor-house, he told Mrs. Wells that molasses 
hqd riz, and yarn hadn’t; Samwell Paine told him so. 

A village store — the store — is not a matter of 
hazard, but a vital necessity. There is no competition 
to be dreaded in a place like Bassett. Nobody else 
had capital or experience to set up an opposition shop: 
there was no better place to trade within twenty miles, 
and it was by the very doors of Bassett people. If they 
did not quite like the way things were conducted, they 
must still abide by it, for there was no help. And in 
many things the business was mightily improved since 
Si Jones’s time. The shop itself was clean and orderly. 
Cod-fish did not lurk in a dusty corner behind patent 
ploughs, and tea-leaves did not fall into the open flour- 
barrel. If sand was suspected in the sugar, there were 
certainly no chips of tobacco in its grainy mass; and 
calico and candy did not live on the same shelf; or 
raisins, bar soap, and blacking occupy a drawer together. 
The floor was swept, washed, and sanded, the counters 
scoured off, the cobwebs banished, the steps repaired, 
the windows kept bright and clear, the scales shining. 
If S. Paine’s clerk had hard work for a lad of eighteen, 
his employer could quote Scripture with tremendous 
fluency and fitness when the boy’s old mother remon¬ 
strated. 

“Well, Miss Bliss, I don’t deny John has to work. 
So do I; so do I. It is good for a man to bear the 
yoke in his youth, Scripter says. There ain’t nothin* 
better for no man than work. ‘ By the sweat o’ thy 
brow,’ ye know. The sperrit an’ principle of the 


SQUniE pains’s conveksion. 


99 


Golden Rewl is my sperrit an’ principle : do’s you’d be 
done by. Yes, yes, ef I was a boy agin, I’d want ter 
be fetched up jest as I was fetched up, — on hard work 
an*’ poor livin’. That rouses the grit, I tell ye. I’m 
a-doin’ by John jest as I was done by ; so don’t ye re¬ 
sent it. It’s fur his best int’rest, soul an’ body.” 
With, which chopped straw poor Mrs. Bliss’s motherly 
heart was forced to content itself, for there was no 
other refreshment. 

Perhaps, in this application of the “Golden Pewl,” 
Samuel Paine forgot how his childish flesh had wept 
and cringed under the hardships of his early life, how 
his childish soul had flamed with rage under the torture 
and insult of the unjustly applied shingle, and the con¬ 
stant watching of stern and pitiless eyes. He may not 
have remembered how his growing bones ached under 
heavy burdens, and his spare flesh craved enough even 
of such diet as pork, cabbage, and rye-bread to allay 
the pangs of childish hunger and the demands of daily 
growth. But, if he did not, is that excuse ? Is not the 
command explicit to ‘ ‘ remember all the way the Lord 
thy God led thee ” ? and is forgetfulness without sin? 

But the man kept on in his respectable career, buy¬ 
ing and selling, — buying at the lowest rates, and selling 
at the highest; faithful externally to all his duties ; 
ever present in church ; .never late at his Sunday-school 
class; never missing a prayer-meeting; a zealous ex- 
horter; “a master-hand at prayin’,” as Widow Bliss 
fdlowed; deeply interested in the work of missions ; 
and a stated contributor to the Bible Society: but at 
home, — no, it was no home, — at his store, strict in 
every matter of business, merciless to his debtors, close 
ind niggardly even to his best customers, harsh to his 


L.ofC. 


100 


SOMEBODY’S NEIGHBORS. 


clerk, ani greedy of every smallest profit. Nobody 
ever went to him for friendly offices. Nobody asked 
him to be neighborly; no subscription-list for a poor 
man with a broken leg or a burned-down barn ever 
crossed the door-sill of the store. When all other 
young men went to quiltings and sociables, he staid at 
the desk, amusing himself with his ledger or a ponder¬ 
ous law-book borrowed from Squii’e Larkin. So he 
lived, or existed, till he was thirty years old; and one 
fine day Squire Larkin died, and left behind him an 
only daughter, a goodly sum of money, and a vacant 
office of postmaster. Now was Samuel’s time again. 
He attended the funeral, and appeared to be deeply 
affected by the loss of an old acquaintance. He called 
on Miss Lucy as early as was proper, and made an 
offer for the squire’s law-books. They were useless to 
Lucy now, and she had not thought of selling them. 
The nearest city was full thirty miles away, and she had 
not even a friend in its busy sphere ; nobody in Bassett 
wanted law-books : so Samuel Paine bought them for a 
quarter of their value, and Lucy never found it out. 
His next step was to petition for the post-office : here, 
again, nobody interfered. It would be very convenient 
to all concerned that the post-ofl3ce should be in the 
stores that was its natural and fit situation. When 
Squire Larkin took it into his hands, his old law-office 
stood close by Si Jones’s place of business; but that 
liny tenement had been burned this long time, and the 
mails cairied to Mr. Larkin’s house, and distributed in 
the south parlor, where, also, his books and his few 
clients found a place. Now, if S. Paine got the office 
vt would be “ everlastin’ handy,” everybody said: so 
everybody signed the petition, and postmaster Paine 
was sworn in. 


SQU]RE PAINE’s CONVERSION. 


103 


Lucy Larkin was no longer young: she was twenty- 
eight at least, — a gentle, faded, pretty woman, with 
mild blue eyes, and thin soft hair of dull brown, and 
soft trembling lips. She was not forcible or energetic ; 
she pottered about the house a good deal, and had 
headaches, and went punctually to sewing-circles. Her 
literary tastes were not violent. She was fond of 
Tupper and the “Lady’s Book;” and every day she 
read a chapter in the Bible, and tried with all her simple 
heart to be good. But she had not much vitality in 
body or soul; and after her father, who had always 
been her tender companion and guide, left her to her¬ 
self, Lucy was dreadfully lonely. The squire left her 
money well tied up; but she had all the income, and 
the principal was also well invested. Here was another 
opening for S. Paine. 

“It really seems providential,” he said to himself, 
as he carefully sanded the last barrel of sugar, having 
first filled his own jar. For, since he had taken the 
store, he had lived in the two rooms above it, taken 
care of his own wants himself, and hired Widow Bliss 
one day in the week to do his washing, ironing, and 
mending, all of which must be achieved within those 
twelve hours, or her dollar (according to agreement) 
was forfeited. “Yes, it does seem to be a leadin’. 
She can’t sell that house, — there ain’t nobody ni Bas¬ 
sett wants to buy a house, —an’ it’s real handy to the 
store. I can put Widder Bliss up stau’s, an’ then John 
won’t lose no time a-comin’ an’ a-goin’ to his meals: 
he’ll be real handy to his work, an’ I can stop the rent 
out o’ »his wages, so’s to be sure on’t. Guess I won’t 
move them law-books yit. Things seems to be gittin’ 
nter shape somehow. I’ll fetch round there to-morrow 


102 


somebody’s neighbors. 


night, if I’m spared, an’ visit with her a little.” And, 
covering up the sugar carefully, Samuel Paine took 
himself off to bed. 

Poor Lucy was lonely, and Mr. Paine made himself 
agreeable. He condoled with her in good set terms, 
'Xuoted Scripture, and threw in verses of Dr. Watts in 
an appropriate manner; blew his nose sonorously when 
Lucy cried a little, and thereby produced in her inno¬ 
cent mind the impression that he was crying too. And 
after he had cheered her up a little with tender exhor¬ 
tations not to give way too much to her feelings, to 
remember that man was made to mourn, that every¬ 
body must die some time or other, and that no doubt 
Squii’e Larkin, or rather “our dear departed friend,” 
enjoyed the “ hallelooyers ” of heaven much better 
than his daughter’s society and keeping post-office, 
with other appropriate remarks of the same kind, he 
bade her good-night, tenderly squeezing her hand as he 
left, and causing the poor little woman to feel doubly 
lonely, and to wish he would come back. 

Ah! why do we try to comfort those whom death 
has bereft? Why do we go over these vain conven¬ 
tionalisms which we know are futile ? Can words like 
these bring back the smile, the voice, the touch, for 
which we hunger with maddening eagerness ? Can it 
help us, in our hopeless longing, to know that others 
suffer the same vital anguish ? that to die is the sure 
fate of all we love, sooner or later? or that we must 
submit to these solitudes and cryings, and strong tears, 
because we cannot help ourselves? No, ten thousand 
times no ! There is but one consolation of real virtue, 
and that is the closer clinging of the soul to Him who 
''annot die. The rings that clasped these broken sup- 


SQUIEE PAINE’S CONVEESION. 


103 


ports must close on higher branches, even on the Tree 
of Life; and if human love takes us in its tender arms, 
and silently kisses away our tears, it may bring us still 
nearer to the divine; for, if we so love one another, 
shall not God who made us love us eternally and 
infinitely ? But Lucy Larkin was one of the bending 
sort of women, who never break under any blow. She 
went her placid way about the world she knew, did all 
her tranquil duties, and prayed hard to be resigned. 
It made resignation easier to have Mr. Paine come in 
once or twice a week ; and when, after a decent inter¬ 
val, he proposed to fill the vacant place in her heart, 
the little smitten plant rose up meekly, and accepted 
the pallid sunshine with gentle surprise and content. 
She was so glad not to be lonely any more, and so 
astonished that such a smart, pious man as Samuel 
Paine should have thought to make her an offer, — “ she 
that wasn’t talented, nor good-lookin’, nor real young.” 

Unworldly little soul! Her twenty thousand dollars 
were more to this ‘ ‘ smart ’ ’ man than the beauty of 
Helen, the gifts of Sappho, or the divine sparkle and 
freshness of ideal girlhood; but she never guessed it. 
So they were married just a year after her father’s 
death. Mrs. Bliss was installed into the tenement over 
the store; and Squire Larkin’s handsome old house, 
being freshened up with paint, and set in thorough 
order, though without any expense of new furnishings, 
seemed to renew its youth. Perhaps, when Mrs. Paine 
learned to know her husband better, she did not expe¬ 
rience all that superhuman bliss which poets and ro¬ 
mancers depict as the result of matrimony — but then 
who does ? Most of us learn to be content if we can 
rub along easily with our life-partners, and cultivate a 


104 


somebody’s neighbors. 


judicious blindness and deafness, in the wise spirit of 
good old Quaker Ell wood’s well-known hymn : — 

“ Oh that mine eyes might closed be 
To what becomes me not to see; 

> That deafness might possess mine ear 

To what becomes me not to hear! ” 

Lucy was not consciously so wise as this ; but she had 
the greatest respect for her husband’s piety and smart¬ 
ness ; and, if she could not understand certain of his 
manners and customs, she still thought a man could 
not err who made such long and fervent prayers at 
family devotions, and who always had the Golden Rule 
on his lips as a professed rule of life. She was not 
naturally demonstrative: few New-England women 
are. If they were as afraid of being angry, or cross, 
or peevish before people, as they are of being affection¬ 
ate and tender, life would be mightily sweetened to 
many of us. But when our sour but sublime old Puri¬ 
tan fathers made it a legal offence for a man to kiss 
his wife on Sunday, what wonder that their descend¬ 
ants’ teeth should be set on edge ? 

But, if Mrs. Paine was not caressing and affectionate 
in manner, Mr. Paine was still less so. If he had any 
heart beside the muscular organ of that name, he had 
it yet to discover: certainly Lucy had not awakened 
it any more than his last investment in groceries. 
I'hings went on very calmly with the pair for a yenv 
or two; the only disturbance being a sudden and un¬ 
reasonable crying-fit of Lucy’s, in which Mr. Paine 
detected her, coming home on an errand quite unex¬ 
pectedly. 

“I ca-ca-can’t help it!” she sobbed hysterically, 
H^hen he sternly demanded, — 


SQUIEE PAINE’S CONVEESION. 


105 


“ What on airth’s the matter with ye, Looey? Stop, 
now, right off. Stop, I tell ye, an’ speak up.” 

“ Oh, o-h, o-h, husband ! Miss Nancy Tuttle’s ben 
here : she’s ben a-talkin’ awful. She said she consid¬ 
ered ’twas her dooty to come an’ deal with me, becoz 
— becoz — oh, o-h, o-h ! ” 

“ Stop it, now, thunderin’ quick. Looey! I can’t 
Stan’ here all day.” 

‘ ‘ O-h! she said she heerd a lot of talk against you, 
husband; an’ she thought I’d ought to know it, so’s’t 
I could use my influence with you, an’ kinder persuade 
you to do different.” 

A grim smile twisted S. Paine’s stiff lips. Lucy’s 
influence with him, indeed! 

“Well, well,” said he, “go ahead: let’s hear what 
I’ve ben a-doin’.” 

“O-h! oh, dear! She said you sanded the sugar 
down to the store, an’ put water into the sperrits, an’ 
asked folks two prices for butter. Oh, dear! I never 
was so beat in all my days.” 

“H-m,” growled Mr. Paine. “I’ll settle with her 
myself. Looey.” 

“ Oh, you can’t! you can’t noways. She’s gone off 
in the stage to York State to live. She said she felt 
as though she must free her mind before she went, so 
she jest stepped in.” 

“ Darn her! ” 

Luckily for Lucy she was sobbing so hard she did 
not hear this expletive, which had all the force of a 
stronger oath, coming from thr/se decorous lips, yet 
was not quite open profanity. 

“Look a-here. Looey,’ Mr. Paine began: “jest 
you shut your head about that scandalous old maid’s 


106 


somebody’s neighbors. 


talk. Hain’t I told ye time an’ agin that the sperrit 
an’ principle o’ the Golden Rewl was my sperrit an’ 
principle? What’s the harm ef I sell poor folks butter 
a leetle mite cheeper’n I sell it to folks with means? 
An’, ef I put a pint o’ water inter Bije Jones’s mm* 
^ug, I do’t out o’ consideration for his fam’ly: he 
can’t afford to buy clear sperrit. As for shoogar, it’s 
sanded afore it comes to me, you better believe ! Now 
don’t ye go a-tollin’ everybody all these lies: they 
grow every time they’re sot out in fresh ground. 
There ain’t nothin’ so good for a fool’s talk nor a liar’s 
as a hullsome lettin’ alone.” With which piece of 
verbal wisdom Samuel Paine went his way, and Lucy 
subsided to her customary and domestic meekness. 

But the current of their lives was mightily disturbed, 
some months after this conversation, by the advent into 
the quiet household of a big obstreperous baby. Lucy 
was blessed for once in her life to the very overflowing 
of her torpid heart. Mr. Paine would have been better 
pleased with a boy, to take the store and the post-oflSce 
after him; but still he was pleased. An odd stir of 
feeling astonished him when he saw the helpless little 
creature; and with natural forecast he reflected that 
there might be a boy yet, and so forgave her for being 
only a girl. However, when years slipped by, and no 
boy came, the sturdy, bright, merry little girl made her 
way boldly into her father’s good graces, and almost 
reconciled him to her sex. Miss Louise ruled her 
mother, of course; that was in the nature of things: 
but all the village looked on in wonder to see the mas¬ 
tery she achieved over Samuel Paine, or as he was 
now called, — partly because of the legal information 
he had acquired, and on a pinch dispensed, from his 


SQUIRE PAINE’S CONVERSION. 


107 


father-in-law’s library, and partly because he had well 
stepped into that gentleman’s shoes otherwise, — Squire 
Paine. 

Louise was an unaccountable offshoot from the pa¬ 
rental tree certainly. Her vivid complexion, waving 
dark hair, brilliant brown eyes, and well-made figure, 
were not more at variance with the aspects of her 
father and mother than her merry, honest, and fearless 
nature was with their dispositions. Neither of them 
tried to govern her, after a few futile attempts. Her 
mother did not see any need of it. To* her the child 
was perfect, a gift of God, held in fear and trembling, 
lest he should recall it from mortal idolatry, but, being 
such a gift, to be entertained as an angel. Squire 
Paine never held any such nonsensical idea as this. 
But, if he undertook to scold or reprove mademoiselle, 
she instantly sprang into his arms, wound her fat hands 
in his coat-collar, and snuggled her curly head against 
his lips with a laugh like a bobolink’s ; and, utterly 
routed, the squire would lift her to his shoulder, and 
march her off to the store, to range among raisin-boxes, 
sugar-barrels, and candy-jars to her heart’s content, 
feeling all the while half ashamed of the unwonted 
warmth in his breast, the difficulty of speech, the soft 
cowardice that carried him away captive, bound to the 
chariot of this small conqueror, who was gracious 
enough not to triumph, only because she conquered un¬ 
consciously. 

So matters went on year after year. In spite of 
sweets and spoiling, Louise grew up strong and healthy, 
thanks to the open air in which it was her royal pleas¬ 
ure to live and move, and have her being. A city 
mother would have wept over the brown complexion. 


108 


SOjVIEBODY’s NEIGHBOI13. 


in which living crimson bui’ned with a warm splendor 
unknown to milk and roses; and any hoarding-school 
phalanx would have shuddered at the well-tanned, slen¬ 
der hands that were so deft at nutting, fishing, picking 
berries, and digging roots. But Bassett people were 
not fine. They only laughed and nodded as Louise 
tore down the wide street on the squire’s ancient horse, 
lashed to a horrid gallop by an old trunk-strap whanged 
about his sides, and the thumps of stout country boots, 
when he dared relax this spirited pace. 

By and by Lucy, quite ashamed of herself, in all 
these years of mild motherly bliss, to think she had 
never given her husband a son, began to fade and fail 
a little, and at last declined into her grave as gently as 
a late spring snow-drift melts into the brown grasses. 
Louise was fifteen now, and knew no more about house¬ 
keeping than a deer in the forest, though successive 
seasons at the academy had given her a fair education 
for a country girl who did not need or intend to teach 
for her living. She mourned for her dear, patient little 
mother far more than she missed her; for Lucy was too 
inert, too characterless, to leave a wide vacancy in her 
home. There are some people whose departure takes 
the sunshine of our days, the salt of our food, the 
fiavor of our pleasures, yea, the breath of our lives, 
away with them, whose loss is a wound never to be 
healed, always bleeding, smarting, burning into our 
very souls, till time shall be no more; and there ai*e 
others, whose death, after the first natural burst of feel¬ 
ing, fails to impress itself deeply, even on their nearest 
and dearest. The selfish, the exacting, the tasteless, 
.mid natures, that were scarce more than vegetable in 
their humanity, — these are lightly mourned ; and of 
these last was Lucy Paine. 


SQUIEE PAINE'S CONVERSION. 


109 


It became necessary, it is true, to put a housekeeper 
in her place ; for the “ hired gM ” whom Squire Paine 
had unwillingly consented to install in the kitchen 
when his wife’s strength began to fail, could not be 
trusted to manage the household: so Mr. Paine be¬ 
thought himself of a second-cousin living in a small 
village up the country, of whom he had now and then 
heard incidentally, and happened to know was still 
unmarried, and pursuing her trade of tailoress about 
Hermon and the vicinity. So he wrote to Miss Roxy 
Keep to come down at once to Bassett and see him, as 
Hermon was too far for him to go, taking time from 
his business which he could not spare. It was made 
very plain in Squire Paine’s letter that Miss Roxy’s 
visit was purely a matter of business ; and her answer 
was as business-like as could be desired. She could 
not, she said, afford a journey to Bassett, unless it 
resulted in some purpose of good; if Squire Paine 
wanted to see her enough to pay her fare one way, she 
was willing to “ resk ” the other half. This curt and 
thrifty,note rather pleased the squire; for, though he 
did not want to risk his money any more than Miss 
Roxy, still he thought her proposition showed her to 
be of his own frugal and forehanded sort, and he at 
once closed with those terms. 

It might be a curious matter of investigation to note 
the influence different occupations have upon those who 
pursue them. Why is it that a tailoress was always 
incisive, practical, full of resource, acute, fearless, 
and even snappy? Did anybody ever see a meek 
woman useful with cloth and shears ? Do the mascu¬ 
line habiliments which she fashions impart a virile 
vigor, and the implements of her trade a man-like 


110 


somebody’s neighbors. 


strength, to the mind which plans and the hand whicli 
wields them ? But we have no time for inductive sci¬ 
ence here. When Squire Paine met Roxy Keep at the 
door, he was at once struck by her compact aspect 
and entire self-possession. Her gown of dark home¬ 
made gingham, and thick plaid shawl, were simply the 
most useful garments that could be. Beauty did not 
excuse their being, much less that of the severe Leg¬ 
horn bonnet, without flower or feather, tied down undei 
her chin with a sturdy greenish ribbon that must have 
been her grandmother’s. But over all these the sensi¬ 
ble face, the keen, dark eyes, firm mouth, and dominant 
nose, forbade any idea of ridicule or contempt to be 
associated with Miss Roxy, whatever she chose to 
wear. The squire was as urbane as he knew how 
to be. 

“Set down, cousin Roxy, set down. I’ll take ye 
over to the house in a minnit. I’ve hed to put in a 
new clerk, ye see. John Bliss he tho’t he could do 
better in tue city ; so he up an’ left me sudden, —too 
sudden re’lly, considerin’ him an’ me hed ben together 
so long An’ now ’Lisha Squires has took his place. 
’Lisha’s a lilvely young man, for what I know — well 
eddicated; father’s a minister o’ the gospel; got run 
down a-preachin’. His wife had means — not much, 
not much, but ’nough to buy a farm: so they traded 
with me for th’ old humstead, an’ he’s a-farmin’ on’t, 
an’ ’Lisha he’s gi’n up goin’ to college, an’ took John 
Bliss’s place here. He’s ruther high-strung, to be 
sure; but he’s smart, real smart, an’ I don’t know as 
I could ha’ did better. He’s a-onheadin’ some barr’ls 
now. A-h ! there he is.” 

And a handsome young fellow, grave and sad be- 


SQUIRE PAINE’S CONVERSION. 


Ill 


yond his years, came up from the cellar with a hatchet 
in his hand. Miss Roxy’s keen eyes read that open 
face at once. She felt the purest pity for the mis¬ 
placed boy, whose education was wasted, and his na¬ 
ture disgusted, by the repellent character of his duties 
as well as his employer. Elisha was indeed misplaced ; 
but he was in his daily way a hero, and to be heroic 
in the petty drudgery of a distasteful life is a thousand 
times harder than to win splendid battles. He had 
given up every thing to help his feeble father and his 
six sisters; so had his mother: and neither of them 
looked upon their sacrifices as more than a matter of 
course, which, perhaps, was the one touch superior 
e-s en to heroism. 

But Miss Roxy, used to that sort of intercourse with 
many, perhaps most, of the families in her neighbor¬ 
hood, which is attributed to the proverbial valet de 
chamhre^ was yet so much more perceptive than that 
stupid French man-servant, that she knew a hero even 
in a country store; and she turned away with the 
squire, carrying in her heart a fund of admiration and 
good will that was to stand Elisha in stead at a future 
time of need. 

In the libraj-y of Squire Larkin’s time the next hour 
was spent by Samuel Paine and Roxy Keep in a pas¬ 
sage of arms. He was determined to secure- Roxy to 
manage his establishment on his own terms: and she 
was willing to be secured, but it must be on her terms ; 
and, being a tailoress, she carried the day. In con¬ 
sideration of the little home she left in Hermon, and 
the lucrative trade she left, she required of the squire 
a written guaranty that her services should continue 
for two years in any ca^e, subject only to her own 


112 


SOMEBODY’S NEIGHBOES. 


change of mind ; that her salary should be paid quar¬ 
terly, under pain of her immediate departure if it failed 
to come to hand ; and that the aforesaid salary should 
be a sufficient equivalent for the trade she gave up. 
After much conversation, the squire yielded all these 
points, though with no good grace. 

“AVell, now I’ve gi’n up to ye,” said he, “I’d like 
to know how soon ye can come, Roxy. Things is 
a-goin’ every which way here. Lowisy’s a good girl, 
— she’s a good enough girl; but she ain’t nothin’ bat a 
girl, an’ she ain’t no more fit to run a house’n she is 
to preaeh a sermon: so I’d Iffie ye to come back’s 
quick as ye can.” 

“I dono’s I need to go,” curtly and promptly an¬ 
swered Miss Roxy. “I reckoned I should stay when 
I come : so I sold out my house to deacon Treadwell’s 
widder, an’ I fetched my trunks along. They’re over 
to Reading depot; and the stage-driver he’ll take the 
checks to-morrer, and fetch ’em back. I don’t never 
let no grass grow under my feet, Squire Paine.” 

“Land alive! I should think not I ” ejaculated the 
astonished squire. So Miss Roxy staid, and the house 
was stirred up from beneath to meet her. Bridget 
gave notice just in time not to have it given to her; 
and brush in hand, the fiercest of bandanna handker 
chiefs tied over her crisp black hair. Miss Roxy began 
that awful “setting to rights” which is at once the 
privilege and the neeessity of strenuous souls Iffie hers. 
At first Louise was half inclined to rebel: the slipshod 
family rule, or misrule, had just suited her youthful 
carelessness. But Miss Roxy’s keen humor, pleasant 
common sense, and comfortable effieiency, soon en¬ 
listed Louise on her side ; and the girl could not help 


SQUIRE PAINE'S CONVERSION. 


11^ 


enjoying the bright order, the speckless comfort, the 
savory meals, the thrift that was not meanness, and 
the frugality that could be discreetly generous, which 
followed Miss Roxy’s reign: and at the end of two 
years the squire was glad enough to renew the guar¬ 
anty which this foreseeing woman still demanded of 
liim. Well for her, well for all of them, was it that 
he did so sign. 

In the mean time Squire Paine had gone his way, 
buying and selling, and talking much about the “Golden 
Rewl,” and many small tiffs had ensued between him 
and Miss Roxy on points of domestic economy. But 
the squire knew, if he had never read, that discretion 
is the better part of valor, and considering just in time 
that housekeeping was not his forte, and was Miss 
Roxy’s, he always beat a retreat after these battles, 
and not alwaj^s with flying colors. But now, toward 
the beginning of this third year, there began to be 
trouble in the camp. Elisha Squires, in common with 
various other youths of Bassett, had found out that 
Louise Paine was charming above all other girls of the 
vicinity; and the squire’s house became a sort of be¬ 
sieged castle, greatly to his disgust and indignation. 

“ I won’t hev it! I won’t hev it! ” stormed he one 
fine night, when the last of seven callers had gone from 
the front-door, and Louise judiciously slipped off to 
bed. 

“ Won’t hev what? ” calmly inquired Roxy, who sat 
by the “ keeping-room ” table, toeing off a stocking. 

“Why, I won’t hev so many fellers a-comin’ here 
the hull etarnal time. There ain’t no use on’t, an’ I 
fell ye I won’t hev it. I won’t, as sure’s ye live.” 

“What be you goin’ to do about it?” was Roxy'’a 
cool rejoinder. 


tl4 


somebody’s neighboes. 


“ I’ll lock the doors.” 

“Then they’ll come into the back-winder,” smiled 
the exasperating spinster. “ Look here, Squire Paine,” 
and she laid down her knitting, and confronted him ab 
on 3 who 

“ Drinks delight of battle with his peers,” 

“ you’re a master-hand to talk about the Golden Rewl: 
how’d you ha’ liked it ef Squire Larkin had locked the 
door to this house on you ? ” 

“ He hadn’t no call to : he was dead.” 

“ Now don’t jump no fences that way. ’Spose he’d 
ben alive?” 

“ I dono’s I’m called to tell ye. I’m a professor in 
good an’ reg’lar standin’, an’ the Golden Rewl hes allers 
ben my standard o’ livin’; an’ the sperrit and princi¬ 
ple o’ the Golden Rewl is to do to others as you’d wish 
to be done by; an’ ef I was a gal I should be glad to 
hev the doors locked on a passel o’ fellers that come 
foolin’ around nights.” 

“You’re life-everlastin’ sure o’ that, be ye?” was 
the dry rejoinder. 

“ Well, ef she ain’t, she’d orter be ; an’ I’m free to 
conclude that Lowisy doos what she’d orter, bein’ my 
child — and her ma’s.” 

“ I don’t believe no great in hinderin’ young folks’s 
Ways, Squire Paine. It’s three wheels to a wagon to be 
young, an’ hinderin’ don’t overset nothin’: it’s more 
apt to set it, a long sight. Don’t you never expect 
Lowisy to git married? ” 

“I dono’s I do, an’ I dono as I. do. Married life 
is an onsartin state. Mebbe Lowisy’d be better off tc 
stay to hum with me. Anyway, there ain’t no secb 


SQUIRE PAINE’S CONVERSION. 


115 


hurry: ’tain’t the best goods go off the fust. An' 
I tell ye what, Roxy, I do expect she’ll hark to me 
about who she marries, and not go an’ git tied up to 
some poor Jack.” 

“ Then I tell you what, Samwell Paine, you expect 
nothin’, an’ you’ll sup sorrow. Girls will pick out 
their own husbands to the day after never, for all you. 
I always hold that there’s two things a woman had 
oughter pick out for herself, spite o’ fate; and them 
two is her husband an’ her carpets.” 

“An’ I expect to pick ’em both out for Lowisy,” 
answered the undaunted squire, as he marched off to 
bed, holding his tallow candle askew, and dropping hot 
tears — of tallow — as he went. 

But as fate, or Louise, would have it. Squire Paine 
was not to pick out either of these essentials for his 
daughter. She was fast drifting into that obstinate 
blessedness which is reserved for youth and love, 
which laughs at parents and guardians, defies time and 
circumstance, and too often blinds the brightest eyes, 
and brings the most fastidious hands to 

“ Wreathe thy fair large ears, my gentle joy,” 

and finds out too late it is Bottom the weaver. 

In Louise’s case, however, there was no danger of 
such waking : she had good reason for her preference. 
Elisha Squires, her father’s clerk, was a handsome, 
well-educated, energetic young fellow, — a gentleman 
by nature and breeding both. Louise had pitied him 
ten thousand times for his unfit position in her father’s 
employment, before he perceived that she was inter¬ 
ested the least in him or his occupation ; and, when it 
dawned on the busy and weary soul that one bright 


116 


somebody’s neighbors. 


blossom looked over the paling into his desert life, 
what was the natural impulse that followed ? It is not 
a young man who “loves the wild rose, and leaves it 
on its stalk,’’ literally or figuratively; and these juve¬ 
nile idiots fell fathoms deep in love with each other, 
entirely unconscious of the melancholy fact that one 
was the richest girl in Bassett, and the other working 
for daily bread. Arcadia could not have shown more 
divine simplicity. But Bassett was not Arcadia; and 
when sundry jealous and disappointed swains discov¬ 
ered that ‘ ‘ Lowisy Paine ’ ’ would go home from prayer- 
meetings with ’Lisha Squires, had actually been seen 
lingering with him at her father’s front-gate in the 
starry May darkness, even after the nine-o’clock bell 
had rung, and was sure to welcome him on a Sunday 
night, though she might snap and snarl at them, then 
Louise's troubles began. Prayer-meetings must be 
attended; but the squire went to and fro with her him¬ 
self, and Elisha could not be spared from the store to 
attend them at all. Squire Paine hated to lose his 
clerk, but he would not lose his daughter: so, with the 
obtuse perception of the heavy father from time imme¬ 
morial, he rushed into the mUee like some floundering 
elephant into a flower-bed. 

“ Lowisy,” said he, one Sunday night, after the row 
of adorers were dispersed, Elisha Squires among them, 
“ hear to me now ! I ain’t a-goin’ to hev you courted 
the hull time by these here fellers. You’ve got to stop 
it. ’Specially I won’t have ye careerin’ around with 
'Lisha: he’s poorer’n poverty, an’ as stuck up as 
though he was mighty Caesar. I’ve fetched ye up, an* 
gi’n ye a good eddication, an’ you ain’t a-goin’ tc 
throw yourself away on no sech trash.” 


SQUIRE PAINE’S CONVERSION. 


117 


The hot color rushed up to Louise’s forehead, her 
red lip curled, and unspeakable disdain expressed it¬ 
self, as she looked straight into her father’s face; but 
she did not say a word. She left the room with perfect 
composure, stopping to pick a dry leaf from her pet 
geranium, and walked up the stairs with a slow precis¬ 
ion that ought to have spoken volumes to her father's 
ear, as it did to Roxy’s. 

“ Well, you’ve done it now,” remarked that respecta¬ 
ble woman. 

“Yes, I guess I hev,” was the squire’s complacent 
answer, quite misapprehending the sense in which he 
had done it. “I guess I’ve put a spoke inter that 
wheel, an’ sideways too.” 

Roxy gave one of the silent chuckles which meant 
deep amusement, and took herself off to bed. She 
was not a woman to interfere with the course of true 
love between Louise and Elisha, both of whom had 
become special favorites of hers since their first ac¬ 
quaintance ; but, as she said to herself, she would not 
“make nor meddle” in this matter, having full confi¬ 
dence in Louise’s power of managing her own affairs, 
and far too much reverence and delicacy in her own 
nature to be a match-maker. But the squire went on 
from bad to worse, and, in his blind zeal to have his 
own way, brought things to a swift conclusion; for, 
having given Elisha notice that he should need him no 
longer, he was more than surprised one fine July morn¬ 
ing to find that Louise had left him too, — that the pair 
had gone together. The squire was black with rage 
when the fact was announced to him by Miss Roxy, 
and a brief and defiant note from Louise put into his 
iiand. He raved, raged, even swore, in his first wild 


118 


somebody’s neighbors. 


fury, and paced up and down the kitchen like a wild 
animal. 

Miss Roxy eyed him with a peculiar expression. 
She felt that her hour had come. As she afterward 
said, “I should ha’ bust ef I hadn’t spoke. I’d ben 
a-hankerin’ to give it to him quite a spell, but I held 
my tongue for Lowisy’s sake. But thinks sez I, 
now’s your time, Roxanny Keep ; pitch in an’ do your 
dooty. An’ I tell ye it whistled of itself. Seemed as 
though ’twa’n’t me re’lly, but somethin’ makin’ a tin 
horn out o’ my lips to rouse him up to judgment.” 
And certainly Miss Roxy was roused herself: she con¬ 
fronted the squire like a Yankee lioness. 

“Look a-here, Samwell Paine: it’s time somebody 
took ye to do. You’ve ben a-buyin’ an’ a-sellin’, an’ 
a-rakin’ an’ a-scrapin’, till your soul — ef you’ve got 
any — is nigh about petered out. You call yourself a 
Christian an’ a professor, an’ a follerer of the Golden 
Rewl, do ye? An’ here you be, cussin’ an’ swearin’ 
like a Hivite an’ a Jeboosite, an’ all the rest on ’em, 
because things ain’t jest as you would have ’em to be. 
You hain’t had no bowels of compassion for Lowisy no 
more’n ef you was her jailer, instead of her pa. 
What’s the matter with ’Lisha Squires? He’s a hon¬ 
est, good-disposed, reliable feller as ever was, good 
enough for anybody’s girl; a Christian too,—not one 
o’ the sugar-sandin’, rum-waterin’, light-weight kind, 
but a real one. He don’t read the Golden Rewl t’other 
side up, as you do, I tell ye. You make it doin’ to 
other folks just what you want to do, an’ lettin’ them 
go hang. I tell ye the hypocrite’s hope shall perish, 
an’ you’re one on ’em as sure as the world. ’Tain’l 
Bayin’ Lord, Lord, that makes folks pious: it’s doin’ 


SQUIRE RAINE’S CONVERSION. 


119 


the will o’ God, justice, an’ mercy, an’ lovin’-kind- 
ness.” 

Here Eoxy paused for breath; and the astounded 
squire ejaculated, ‘‘ Roxanny Keep ! ” 

“Yes, that’s my name: I ain’t afeared to own it, 
nor to set it square to what I’ve said. I hain’t lived 
here goin’ on three year, an’ seen your ways, for nothin’. 
I’ve had eyes to behold your pinchin’ an’ sparin’ an’ 
crawlin’ ; grindin’ poor folks’s faces, an’ lickin’ rich 
folks’s platters; actin’ as though your own daughter 
was nothin’ but a bill of expense to ye, an’ a block to 
show off your pride an’ vanity, not a livin’, lovin’ soul 
to show the way to heaven to. An’ now she’s quit. 
She’s got a good, lovin’, true-hearted feller to help her 
along where you didn’t know the way, and didn’t want 
to, neither; an’ you’re ravin’ mad ’cause he hain’t got 
no money, when you’ve got more’n enough for all on 
ye. Samwell Paine, you ain’t no Christian, not ’cordin’ 
to gospel truth, ef you have been a professor nigh on 
to forty year. You no need to think you was con¬ 
verted, for you never was. Folks ain’t converted to 
meanness an’ greediness an’ self-seekin’, an’ wrath an’ 
malice. The Lord don’t turn ’em into the error of their 
ways: he turns ’em out on’t. Ef you was a minister 
in the pulpit, or a deacon handin’ the plate, you ain’t 
no Christian ’thout you act like one; an’ that’s the 
etarnal fact on’t. You’ve ben a livin’ lie all these 
years ; an’ you’ve ended by drivin’ your only daughter, 
your own flesh an’ blood, the best thing the Lord ever 
give ye, out o’ house an’ home ’cause you was mad 
after money. An’ it’ll happen unto ye accordin’ to 
the word o’ the Lord about sech folks: you’ll be 
drownded in destruction an’ perdition, an’ pierce youp 


120 


somebody’s neighbors. 


self through with many sorrers, ef you don’t flee tor 
your life from sech things, and foiler after righteous¬ 
ness, godliness, an’ the rest on ’em. You’d oughter 
go down on your poor old knees, an’ pray to be con¬ 
verted at the ’leventh hour. There, I’ve freed my 
mind, thank the Lord! an’ there won’t be none o’ your 
blood found on my skirts ef the last day comes in to- 
morrer mornin’.” With which the exhausted lecturer 
heaved a long breath, and began to mop her heated 
face vigorously with her inseparable bandanna handker¬ 
chief, which might have symbolized to the audience, 
had there been any, a homely victorious banner. 

The squire stood amazed and afraid. In all the long 
course of his life nobody had ever before gainsaid him. 
Outward respect and consideration had been his por¬ 
tion : now the ground cracked under his feet, and he 
found himself in a new land. He did not go to the 
store that day: he stumbled out of Roxy’s sight,, and 
shut himself up in the unused parlor, where alternate 
storms of rage, conviction, despair, and scorn, assailed 
him for many hours. It was, indeed, a dreadful battle 
that he fought in the musty silence of that darkened 
room, pacing up and down like a caged tiger. Roxy 
had spoken awful words ; but they were milk and honey 
compared to the echo which ^ his late-awakened con¬ 
science gave them: still he fought with a certain sav¬ 
age courage against the truths that were toppling over 
to crush him, and justified himself to his own accusing 
soul with a persistent hardihood that had better served 
a better cause. It was reserved for God’s own stroke 
to bring sweet waters out of this rock : Moses and the 
rod had smitten it in vain. Just as his courage seemed 
to aid him, and he had resolved to send Roxy back to 


SQUIRE PAINE’s CONVERSION. 


121 


Hermon and her tailoring, and brave out the judgment 
of his fellow-men and the desertion of Louisa, nay, 
more, to revenge himself for that desertion by refusing 
her aid or comfort, or even recognition of any kind, — 
just then, as he had settled down into his self-compla¬ 
cency, and wilful disregard of God’s own words, pelted 
at him as they had been by Roxy, he heard an outer 
door open, invading steps, voices of low tumult, a sort 
of whispering horror and stifled grief drawing nearer 
to his retreat, and the door opened very slowly, dis¬ 
closing the stern features of Parson Peters, the village 
minister. Not altogether stern now was that long and 
meagre visage : a sort of terror mingled with pity soft¬ 
ened its rigid lines. 

“My brother,” he said, lifting one hand, as he was 
wont to do when praying over a coffin, and facing the 
troubled and inflamed countenance of Squire Paine, — 
“my brother, the hand of the Lord is upon you this 
day. Your child has been taken. There has been a 
terrible accident to the train by which they left Reading 
station, and news has come that both are — gone.” 

Like a forest tree into which the woodman sets his 
last stroke, the squire tottered, paused for one instant 
of time, and fell forward prostrate. 

Roxy was behind Parson Peters as the old man fell; 
and, pushing that eminent divine out of her way like a 
spider, she was at once on her knees by his side, 
promptly administering the proper remedies. It was 
only a fainting-fit; but, when the squire recovered, he 
was weak, humble, and gentle as a little child. He lay 
on the sofa in the parlor all day. The unused windows 
were opened, and the sweet summer air flowed in and 
out with scents of late roses and new hay on its deli- 


122 


somebody’s neighboes. 


cate wings; but Squire Paine did not notice it. He 
took the broth Roxy brought him without a complaint, 
and actually thanked her for it. She herself guarded 
the outside door like a dragon, and even refused ad- 
udttance to Parson Peters. 

“No,” said she: “it’s good to let him be to-day. 
I tell ye the Lord’s a-dealin’ with the poor old creter, 
an’ we hadn’t ought to meddle. Human nater is ever- 
lastin’ queer, an’ there is some folks nobody can tune 
so well as Him that made ’em. He’ll take up his bed 
an’ walk as soon as the merracle works, an’ we can’t 
hurry it up any; but I’ve faith to believe it’s 
a-workin’.” 

And it was according to Roxy’s faith. As soon as 
the sun went down, the squire rose up, ate what was 
set before him, put his disordered dress to rights, and 
walked feebly over to the weekly prayer-meeting; for 
these things happened of a Thursday. 

The lights in the little schoolhouse were dim and 
few, for the night’s warm atmosphere made even the 
heat of the two necessary lamps oppressive ; but Squire 
Paine took no advantage of this darkness, though the 
room was unusually full. He walked to the very front 
bench, and seated himself before the deacon who con¬ 
ducted the meeting ; and, as soon as the opening hymn 
was sung, he waved the good man who was about to 
follow with a prayer aside with a certain rugged dig- 
lity, and rose, facing the assembly, and beginning with 
broken voice to speak. 

“Brethring,” he said, “I come here to-night to 
make a confession. I’ve lived amongst you for sixty 
odd year, man an’ boy, an’ the last fort}^ on ’em I’ve 
ben a livin’ lie. Brethring, I hev ben a professor it 


SQUIRE PAINE’S CONVERSION. 123 

this here church all that time, an’ I wa’n’t never con¬ 
verted. I was a real stiddy-goin’ hypocrite, an’ I 
hain’t but jest found it out. The marciful Lord has 
kinder spared me for a day of repentance, an’ it’s 
come : I tell ye it’s come ! There was one that dealt 
with me mightily, an’ shook me some, — one, I may 
say, that drilled the hole, an’ put in the powder of the 
Word, an’ tamped it down with pretty stiff facts; but 
it didn’t do no good. I was jest like a rock bored an’ 
charged, but pooty rugged an’ hard yet. But, breth- 
riug, THE Lord has fired the blast himself, an’ the 
nateral man is broken to pieces. I give up right here. 
The Lord is good. God be merciful to me a sinner! 
Brethring, can’t you pray? ” 

There was but one answer to the pathetic agony of 
that appeal. Deacon Adkins rose, and prayed as if his 
lips had been touched with a coal from the altar, and 
there were sympathetic tears in the hardest eyes there 
before he finished ; while Squire Paine’s low sobs were 
heard at intervals, as if they were the very convulsions 
of a breaking heart. 

“ Let us sing 

‘ Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,’ ” 

said the deacon, after his prayer was over. And, when 
the last line of that noble Doxology floated away into 
the rafters, they all gathered round to shake hands, 
and express their deep sympathy with the repentant 
and bereaved father. It was almost too much for 
Squire Paine. The breaking-up of the great deep within 
had worn upon him exceedingly; humbled, sad, yet 
wonderfully peaceful as his spirit felt, still the flesh 
trembled, and was weak. He was glad when Roxy 


124 


soiviebody’s neighbors. 


came up, and, taking hold of his arm, led him home¬ 
ward. 

Was he glad, or death-smitten, or, as he thought, 
suddenly in the heavenly places, when his own door 
opened before his hand touched the latch, and Louise, 
darting forward, threw her arms about his neck ? 

“Land o’ liberty!” shrieked Roxy. “Do you 
want to kill your pa outright? An’ how came ye here 
anyway? We heered you an’ him was both stun- 
dead! ” 

Roxy’s curt and curious interposition seemed to re¬ 
store the equilibrium suddenly. Squire Paine did not 
faint, and Louise • actually laughed. Here was some¬ 
thing natural and homely to shelter in after the dream¬ 
like agitation of the day. 

“ No,” said Louise’s clear voice : “we wa’n’t hurt, 
not much — only stunned, and scared a bit. But there 
was two in the next seat who — well, they won’t come 
home to their folks. Aunt Roxy. We thought maybe 
you would be anxious ; and then somebody said right 
before us that we were both killed, and they’d sent 
the news over to Bassett: so we thought the best 
thing to do was to come back and show ourselves. 
Here’s ’Lisha.” 

Squire Paine must have been converted ; for he shook 
his son-in-law’s hand with all good will, and kissed 
his daughter heartily. His voice was somewhat weak 
and husky; but he managed to say so as to be heard, 
“An’ now ye’ve got home re’lly, you’ve got to stay 
home. I sha’n’t hev no more sech risks run. And, 
’Lisha, we’ll open the store real early to-morrer. I 
dono when it’s ben shut twenty-four hours before.” 

This was all he said; for the New-England man 


SQUIRE PAINE’s CONVERSION. 


125 


saint or sinner, has few words when feeling is strong¬ 
est. But the squire’s action spoke for him. He never 
referred to the past, but strove with his might to live 
a new and righteous life. Not all at once the granite 
gave place to gold : there were were roots of bitterness, 
and strivings of the old Adam, many and often; but 
none who had once known him doubted that Squire 
Paine was a changed man. At his own earnest re¬ 
quest he was allowed to make a new profession of reli¬ 
gion ; and, after relating his experiences in due form 
to the assembled deacons, he wound up the recital in 
this fashion : “It was the Lord’s hand done it fin’lly, 
brethring; but, next to him, I owe this here real con¬ 
version to Roxanny Keep.” 

“ Halleloojah ! ” exclaimed Aunt Roxy, when Mrs. 
Deacon Adkins betrayed her good husband’s confidence 
far enough to tell her this. “ I tell ye. Miss Adkins, 
I took my life in my hand that mornin’ ; but I felt a 
call to do it. Ye know David killed Goliath with a 
pebble, nothin’ more ; an’ I allers could sling straight.” 


MISS BEULAH’S BONNET. 


“ I don’t want to be too fine, ye know, Mary Jane, — 
somethin’ tasty and kind of suitable. It’s an old bun- 
nit ; but my! them Leghorns’ll last a generation if you 
favor ’em. That was mother’s weddin’ bunnit.” 

“You don’t say so! Well, it has kept remarkable 
well; but a good Leghorn will last, that’s a fact, 
though they get real brittle after a spell: and you’ll 
have to be awful careful of this. Miss Beulah; it’s 
brittle now, I see.” 

“ Yes, I expect it is ; but it’ll carry me through this 
summer, I guess. But I want you to make it real 
tasty, Mary Jane; for my niece Miss Smith, she that 
was ’Liza Barber, is coming to stay a while to our 
house this summer, and she lives in the city, you 
know.” 

“ ’Liza Barber! Do tell I Why, I haven’t seen her 
sence she was knee-high to a hop-toad, as you may say. 
He ain’t livin’, is he? ” 

“ No: he died two years ago, leavin’ her with three 
children. Sarah is a grown girl; and then there’s 
Jack, he’s eight, and Janey, she’s three. There was 
four died between Jack and Sarah. I guess she’s full 
eighteen.” 

“ Mercy to me ! time fiies, don’t it? But about the 
bunnit: what should you say to this lavender ribbin? 

126 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


127 


“Ain’t I kind of dark for lavender? I had an idee 
to have brown, or mabbe dark green.” 

“Land! for spring? Why, that ain’t the right 
thing. This lavender is real han’some ; and I’ll set it 
off with a little black lace, and put a bow on’t in the 
front. It’ll be real dressy and seemly for you.” 

“Well, you can try it, Mary Jane; but I give you 
fair warnin’, if I think it’s too dressy, you’ll have to 
take it all off.” 

“I’m willin’,” laughed Miss Mary Jane Beers, a 
good old soul, and a contemporary of her customer. 
Miss Beulah Larkin, who was an old maid living in 
Dorset on a small amount of money carefully invested, 
and owning the great red house which her grandfather 
had built for a large family on one corner of his farm. 
Farm and family were both gone now, save and except 
Miss Beulah and her niece; but the old lady and a 
little maid she had taken to bring up dwelt in one end 
of the wide house, and contrived to draw more than 
half their subsistence from the garden and orchard 
attached to it. Here they spun out an innocent exist¬ 
ence, whose chief dissipations were evening meetings, 
sewing-societies, funerals, and the regular Sunday ser- 
vi3es, to which all the village faithfully repaired, and 
any absence from which was commented on, investi¬ 
gated, and reprobated, if without good excuse, in the 
most unsparing manner. Miss Beulah Larkin was tall, 
gaunt, hard-featured, and good. Everybody respected 
her, some feared, and a few loved her: but sbe was 
not that sort of soul which thirsts to be loved; her 
whole desire and design was to do her duty and be 
respectable. Into this latter clause came the matter of 
a bonnet, over which she had neld such anxious dis- 


128 


SOMEBODY S NEIGHBOES. 


course. If she had any feminine vanity, -— and she 
was a woman, —it took this virtuous aspect of a desire 
to be “respectit like the lave,” for decency of dress 
as well as demeanor. This spring she had received a 
letter from her niece, the widowed Mrs. Smith, asking 
if she could come to visit her ;• and, sending 1 >ack a 
pleased assent. Miss Beulah and her little handmaid 
Nanny Starks bestirred themselves to sweep and gar¬ 
nish the house, already fresh and spotless from its re¬ 
cent annual cleaning. Windows were opened, beds 
put out to sun, blankets aired, spreads unfolded, sheets 
taken from the old chests, and long-disused dimity cur¬ 
tains washed, ironed, and tacked up against the small- 
paned sashes, and tied back with scraps of flowered 
ribbon, exhumed from hidden shelves, that might well 
have trimmed that Leghorn bonnet in its first youth. 

Mrs. Eliza Smith was a poor woman, but a woman 
of resource. Her visit was not purely of affection, or 
of family respect. Her daughter Sarah — a pretty, 
slight, graceful girl, with gold-brown hair, dark straight 
brows above a pair of limpid gray eyes, red lips, and 
a clear pale skin — had been intended by her mother 
to blossom into beauty in due season, and “marry 
well,” as the phrase goes; but Sarah and a certain 
Fred Wilson, telegraph-operator in Hartford, had set 
all the thrifty mother’s plans at deflance, and fallen 
head over heels in love, regardless of Mrs. Smith or 
anj^body else. Sarah’s brows were not black and 
straight, or her chin firm and cleft with a dimple, for 
nothing: she meant to marry Fred Wilson as soon as 
was convenient; and Mrs. Smith, having unusual com¬ 
mon sense, as well as previous experience of Sarah’s 
capacity of resistance, ceased to oppose that ycimg 


MISS BEULAH'S BONNET. 


129 


lady’s resolute intention. Master Wilson had already 
gone West, to a more lucrative situation than Dartford 
afforded ; and Sarah was only waiting to get ready as 
to her outfit, and amass enough money for the cost 
of travelling, to follow him, since he was unable to 
return for her, both from lack of money and time. 
I/i this condition of things it occurred to Mrs. Smith 
that it would save a good deal of money if she could 
spend the summer with Aunt Beulah, and so be spared 
the expense of board and lodging for her family. 
Accordingly she looked about for a tenant for her 
little house; and, finding one ready to come in sooner 
than she had anticipated, she answered aunt Beulah’s 
friendly letter of invitation with an immediate accept¬ 
ance, and followed her own epistle at once, arriving 
just as the last towel had been hung on the various 
wash-stands, and while yet the great batch of sweet 
home-made bread was hot from the oven, and, alas 
for Miss Beulah ! before that Leghorn bonnet had come 
home from Miss Beers’s front-parlor, in which she 
carried on her flourishing millinery business. 

Miss Larkin was unfeignedly glad to see Eliza again, 
though her eyes grew a little dim, perceiving how time 
had transformed the fresh, gay girl she remembered 
into this sad and sallow woman ; but she said nothing 
of these changes, and, giving the rest an equal wel¬ 
come, established them in the clean, large, cool cham¬ 
bers that were such a contrast to the hot rooms, small 
and dingy, of their city home. 

Jack was a veritable little pickle, tall of his age, 
and light of foot and hand; nature had framed him 
in body and mind for mischief; while Sarah was a 
pleasant, handy young girl, as long as nothing opposed 


m 


somebody’s neighbors. 


aer; and Janey a round and rosy poppet, who adored 
Jack, and rebelled against her mother and Sarah 
hourly. Jack was a born nuisance : Miss Beulah could 
hardly endure him, he did so controvert all the orders 
and manners of her neat house. He hunted the hens 
to the brink of distraction, and broke up their nests 
till eggs were scarce to find, — a state of things never 
before known in that old barn, where the hens had 
dwelt and done their duty, till that duty had consigned 
them to the stew-pan, for years and years. He made 
the cat’s life a burden to her in a hundred ways ; an 
poor Nanny Starks had never any rest or peace till her- 
tormentor was safe in bed. 

Mrs. Smith began to fear her visit would be prema¬ 
turely shortened on Jack’s account: and Sarah, who 
had wisely confided her love-affair to aunt Beulah, and 
stirred that hardened heart to its core by her pathetic 
tale of poverty and separation, began to dread the 
failure of her hopes also ; for her aunt had more than 
hinted that she would give something toward that trav¬ 
elling money which was now the girl’s great object 
in life, since by diligent sewing she had almost finished 
her bridal outfit. As for Janey, she was already, in 
spite of her naughtiness, mistress of aunt Beulah’s 
very soul. Bound, fat, rosy, bewitching as a child and 
only a child can be, the poor spinster’s repressed 
affection, her denied maternity, her love of beauty, — 
a secret to herself, — and her protecting instinct, all 
blossomed for this baby,« who stormed or smiled at 
her according to the caprice of the hour, but was 
equally lovely in the old lady’s eyes whether she 
smiled or stormed. If Janey said, “Turn!” in her 
imperative way, Miss Beulah came, whether her hands 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


131 


were in the wash-tub or the bread-tray. Janey nin 
riot over her most cherished customs ; and, while she 
did not hesitate to scold or even slap ^ack harshly for 
his derelictions, she had an excuse always ready for 
Janey’s worst sins, and a kiss instead of a blow for her 
wildest exploits of mischief. Jack hated the old .aunty 
as much as he feared her tongue and hand: and this 
only made matters worse ; for he felt a certain right to 
torment her that would not have been considered a 
right, had he felt instead any shame for abusing her 
kindness. But a soft answer from her never turned 
away his wrath, or this tale of woe ‘about her bonnet 
had never been told. 

There had been long delay concerning that article. 
The bleacher had been slow, and the presser imprac¬ 
ticable : it had been sent back once to be reshaped, 
and then the lavender ribbon had proved of scant 
measure, and had to be matched. But at last, one hot 
day in May, Nanny brought the queer old bandbox 
home from Miss Beers’s, and aunt Beulah held up her 
head-gear to be commented on. It was really a very 
good-looking bonnet. The firm satin ribbon was a pleas¬ 
ant tint, and contrasted well with the pale color of the 
Leghorn ; and a judicious use of black lace gave it an 
air of sobriety and elegance combined, which pleased 
Miss Beulah’s eye, and even moved Mrs. Smith to 
express approbation. 

“Well, I’m free to own it suits me,” said the old 
lady, eying the glass with her head a little on one 
side, as a bird eyes a worm. “It’s neat, audit’s 
becomin’, as fur as a bunnit can be said to be becomin’ 
to an old woman, though I ain’t really to call old. 
Mary Jane Beers is older than me; and she ain’t but 


132 


somebody’s neighboes. 


seveuty-three,—jest as spry as a lark too. Yes, I 
lilie the bunnit; but it doos — sort of — seem — as 
though that there, bow wa’n’t really in the middle of 
it. What do you think, ’Lizy?'' 

“ I don’t see but what it’s straight, aunt Beulah.” 

“’Tain’t,” said the spinster firmly. “ Sary, you 
look at it.” 

Sarah’s eye was truer than her mother’s. “ ’Tis a 
mite too far to the left, aunt Beulah; but I guess I 
can fix it.” 

“ You let her take it,” said Mrs. Smith. “ She’s a 
real good hand at millinery: she made her own hat, 
and Janey’s too. I should hate to have her put her 
band to that bunnit if she wa’n’t; for it’s real pretty — 
’specially for a place like Dorset to get up.” 

“ Lay it off on the table, aunt Beulah. I’m going 
up stairs to make my bed, and I’ll fetch my work- 
basket down, and fix that bow straight in a jiffy.” 

“Well, I must go up too,” said Mrs. Smith, and 
followed Sarah out of the room; but Miss Beulah, 
though duty called her too, in the imperative shape 
of a batch of bread waiting to be moulded up, lingered 
a little longer, poising the bonnet on her hand, holding 
it off to get a distant view, turning it from side to 
side, and, in short, behaving exactly as younger and 
prettier women do over a new hat, even when it is a 
miracle of art from Paris, instead of a revamped Leg¬ 
horn from a country shop. 

She laid it down with a long breath of content, for 
taste and economy had done their best for her; and 
then she. too, left the room, never perceiving that Jack 
and Janey had been all the time deeply engaged under 
the great old-fashioned breakfast-table, silently ripping 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


133 


np a new doll to see what was inside it, — silently, be¬ 
cause they had an inward consciousness that it was 
mischief they were about; and Jack, at least, did not 
want to be interrupted till he was through. But he 
had not been too busy to hear and understand that aunt 
Beulah was pleased ; and, still smarting from the switch 
with which she had whipped his shoulders that very 
morning for putting the cat into the cistern, he saw 
an opportunity for revenge before his eyes: he would 
hide this precious bonnet so aunt Beulah could never 
find it again. How to do this, and not be found out, 
was a problem to be considered; but mischief is quick¬ 
witted. There stood in the window a large rocking- 
chair, well stuffed under its chintz cover, and holding 
a plump soft feather cushion so big it fairly overflowed 
the seat. Under this cushion he was sure nobody 
would think of looking; and, to save himself from 
consequences, he resolved to make Janey a cat’s-paw: 
so he led her up to the table, made her lift the precious 
hat and deposit it under the cushion, which he raised 
for the purpose ; then, carefully dropping the frill, he 
tugged Janey, unwilling but scared and silent, out 
into the yard, and, impressing on her infant mind with 
wild threats of bears and guns that she must never 
tell where the bonnet was, he contrived to interest her 
in a new play so intensely, that the bonnet went utterly 
into oblivion, as far as she was concerned; and when 
they were called in to dinner, and she had taken her 
daily nap, Janey had become as innocent of mischief 
in her own memory as the dolly who lay all disembow¬ 
eled and forlorn under the table. 

When Sarah came down and did not find the bonnet, 
she concluded aunt Beulali had put it away in her own 


iM 


SOMEBODY’S NEIGHBORS. 


room, for fear a sacrilegious fly or heedless speck 
of dust might do it harm : so she took up a bit of lace 
she was knitting, and went out into the porch, glad to 
get into a cool place, the day was so warm. 

And when the bread was moulded up, aunt Beulah 
came back, and, not seeing her bonnet, supposed Sarah 
had taken it up stairs to change the bow. She was 
not an impatient woman,' and the matter was not 
pressing: so she said nothing about the bonnet at 
dinner, but hurried over that meal in order to finish 
her baking. Mis. Smith had not come down again, 
for a morning headache had so increased upon her, she 
had lain down : so that no one disturbed the rocking- 
cliair in which that bonnet lay hid till Mrs. Blake, the 
minister’s wife, came in to make a call about four 
o’clock. She was a stout woman, and the walk had 
tired her. Aunt Beulah’s hospitable instincts were 
roused by that red, weary face. 

“You’re dreadful warm, ain’t you. Miss Blake?'’ 
said she. “It’s an amazin’ warm day for this time 
of year, and it’s consider’ble more’n a hen-hop from 
your house up here. Lay your bunnit off, do, and set 
down in the rocker. I’ll tell Nanny to fetch some 
shrub and water. Our ras’berry shrub is good, if I do 
say it; and it’s kep’ over as good as new.” 

So Mrs. Blake removed her bonnet, and sank down 
on that inviting cushion with all her weight, glad 
enough to rest, and ignorant of the momentous conse¬ 
quences. Her call was somewhat protracted. Had 
there been any pins in that flattened Leghorn beneath 
her, she might have shortened her stay. But Miss Mary 
Jane Beers was conscientiously opposed to pins; and 
every lavender bow was sewed on with silk to match, 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


135 


and scrupulous care. After the whole village news 
had been discussed, the state of religion lamented, and 
the short-comings of certain sisters who failed in at¬ 
tending prayer-meetings talked over, — with the chari¬ 
table admission, to be sure, that one had a young bal)yj 
and another a sprained ankle, —Mrs. Blake rose to go, 
tied on her bonnet, and said good-by all round, quite 
as ignorant as her hosts of the remediless ruin she had 
done. 

It was tea-time now ; and, as they sat about the table, 
Sarah said, “I guess I’ll fix your bonnet after tea, 
aunty: ’twon’t take but a minute, and I’d rather do 
it while I recollect just where that bow goes.” 

“Why, I thought you had fixed it! ” returned Miss 
Beulah. 

“ Well, I came right back to ; but it wa’n’t here. I 
thought you’d took it into your bedroom.” 

“I hain’t touched it sence it lay right here on the 
table.” 

“I’ll run up and ask ma : maybe she laid it by.” 

But Mrs. Smith had not been down stairs since she 
left aunt Beulah with the bonnet in her hands. And 
now the old lady turned on Jack. “Have you ben 
and carried off my bunnit, you little besom? ” 

“I hain’t touched your old bonnet!” retorted Jack 
with grand scorn. 

“I don’t believe he has,” said Sarah; “for, when 
I come down stairs and found it wa’n’t here, I went out 
and set on the bench to the front-door, and I heard 
him and Janey away off the other side of the yard, 
plavin*; and you know they wa’n’t in here when the 
bonnet come.” 

“Well, of course Jarey hasn’t seen it, if Jack 


136 


somebody’s neighbors. 


hasn’t; and, if she had, the blessed child wouldn’t 
have touched old aunty’s bonnet for a dollar — would 
she, precious lamb?” And aunt Beulah stroked the 
bright curls of her darling, who looked up into her 
face, and laughed ; while Jack grinned broadly between 
his bites of bread and butter, master of the situation, 
and full of sweet revenge. “And Nanny hain’t seen 
it, I know,” went on aunt Beulah ; “ for she was along 
of me the whole enduring time. She set right to a-parin’ 
them Roxbury russets the minnit she fetched home the 
bunnit; and I kep’ her on the tight jump ever sence, 
because it’s bakin’-day, and there was a sight to do 
But I’ll ask her : ’tain’t lost breath to ask, my motha 
used to say, and mabbe it’s a gain.” 

The old lady strode out into the kitchen with knit 
brows, but came back without any increased knowl¬ 
edge. “ She hain’t ben in here once sence she set 
down the bandbox; and, come to think on’t, I know 
she hain’t, for I cleared the table myself to-day, and, 
besides, the bunnit wa’n’t here at dinner-time. Now 
let’s hunt for it. Things don’t gener’lly vanish away 
without hands ; but, if we can’t find no hands, why, it’s 
as good as the next thing to look for the bunnit. ’ ’ 

So they went to work and searched the house, as 
they thought, most thoroughly. No nook or comer but 
was investigated, if it was large enough to hold that 
bonnet; but nobody once thought of looking under the 
chair-cushion. If it had been as plump and fiuffy as 
when Jack first had Janey put the lost structm’e under 
it, there might have been a suspicion of its hiding- 
place ; but Mrs. Blake’s two hundred pounds of solid 
flesh had reduced bonnet and cushion alike to unusuai 
fatness. Or, if it had been any other day but Satur 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


107 


day, the chair might have been dusted and shaken up, 
and revealed its mystery ; but early that very morning 
the house below stairs had been swept, and the furni¬ 
ture dusted, the cushions shaken out, the brasses pol¬ 
ished, and all the weekly order and purity restored 
everywhere. The bonnet was evidently lost; and Jack; 
who had followed the domestic detectives up stairs 
and down, retired behind the wood-pile, and executed a 
joyful dance to relieve his suppressed feelings, snap¬ 
ping his fingers, and slapping his knees, and shouting 
scraps of all the expletives he knew, in the joy of his 
heart. How tragic would this mirth have seemed to a 
spectator aware of its cause, contrasted with the por¬ 
tentous gloom on aunt Beulah’s forehead, and the 
abstracted glare of her eye! For several days this 
deluded spinster mused and mazed over her bonnet, 
going to church on Sunday in her shabby old velvet 
hat, which had scarcely been respectable before, but 
now, in the glare of a hot May sun, not only showed 
all its rubbed and worn places, its shiny streaks and 
traces of eaves-drops in the depressed and tangled 
nap, but also made her head so hot that she fairly went 
to bed at last with sick-headache, unable to attend even¬ 
ing service, — a most unheard-of thing for her. 

Before the week was half done, she had settled into 
a profound belief that some tramp had passed while 
they were all out of the room, and, charmed by that 
lavender satin ribbon and black lace, stolen the bonnet, 
and carried it off to sell; and many a time did Miss 
Beulah sit rocking to and fro on top of her precious 
Leghorn, wondering and bemoaning at its loss. But 
murder will out — sometimes, and would certainly have 
come out in the weekly cleaning the next Saturday, 


138 


somebody’s neighbors. 


if, on the Friday morning, Miss Beulah had not set 
down a pitcher of milk, just brought in by a neighbor, 
on the end of the table nearest to that rocking-chair- — 
Bet it down only for a moment, to get the neighbor a 
recipe for sugar gingerbread peculiar to the Larkin 
family. Janey happened to be thirsty, and reached 
after the pitcher, but was just tall enough to grasp the 
handle so low down, that when she pulled at it, steady¬ 
ing herself against the chair, it tipped sideways, and 
poured a copious stream of fresh milk on the cushion. 
Tlie chintz was old, and had lost its glaze, and the 
feathers were light: so the rich fluid soaked in at 
once; and before the two women, recalled from the 
cupboard by Janey’s scream, could reach the pitcher, 
there was only a very soppy and wet cushion in the 
chair. 

“ For mercy’s sakes ! ” said the neighbor. But Miss 
Beulah, with great presence of mind, snatched up the 
dripping mass and flung it out of the open window, 
lest her carpet should suffer. She reverted to the chair 
in a second, and stood transflxed. 

“What under the everlastin’ canopy!” broke from 
her dismayed lips; for there, flattened out almost be¬ 
yond recognition, and broken wherever it was bent, its 
lavender ribbons soaked with milk, the cheap lace limp 
and draggled, lay the remains of the Leghorn bonnet. 

“ Of all things I ” exclaimed the neighbor ; but there 
Was an echo of irrepressible amusement in her tones. 
Aunt Beulah glared at her, and lifted the damp bonnet 
Es tenderly as if it had been Janey’s curls, regarding 
it with an expression pen or pencil fails to depict, — a 
mix^re of grief, pity, indignation, and amazement, 
that, together with the curious look of the bonnet, wasi 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


1S9 


too much for the neighbor; and, to use her own after¬ 
expression in describing the scene, she “snickered 
right out.” 

“ Laugh, do,” said aunt Beulah witheringly. — “do 
laugh! I guess, if your best bunnit had ben set on 
and drownded, you’d laugh the other side o’ year 
mouth. Miss Jackson. This is too much.” 

“ Well, I be sorry,” said the placable female ; “ but 
it doos look so dreadful ridiculous like, I couldn’t no¬ 
ways help myself. But how on earth did it git there, 
I admire to know? ” 

“ I dono myself as I know ; but I hain’t a doubt in 
my own mind it was that besom of a Jack. He is the 
fullest of ’riginal sin and actual transgression of any 
boy I ever see. He did say, now I call to mind, that 
he hadn’t never touched it; but I mistrust he did. He 
beats all for mischief that ever I see. I’m free to say 
I never did like boys. I suppose divine Providence 
ordained ’em to some good end ; but it takes a sight o’ 
grace to believe it: and, of all the boys that ever was 
sent into this world for any purpose, I do believe he is 
the hatefulest. I’d jest got my bunnit to my mind, 
calc’latin’ to wear it all summer ; and I am a mite per- 
nickity. I’ll allow that, about my bunnits. Well, 
’tain’t no use to cry over spilt milk.” 

“I’ll fetch ye some more to-morrow,” said the lit¬ 
eral neighbor. 

“ You’re real good. Miss Jackson ; but I’m more ex¬ 
ercised a lot about my bunnit than I be about the milk, 
— Sary, look a-here ! ” 

Sarah, just coming in at' he door, did look, and, like 
Mrs. Jackson, felt a strong desire to smile, but with 
native tact controlled ’t. 


140 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“Why, where on earth did you find it, aunt 
Beulah? ” 

“ Right under the rocker-cushion. It must have ben 
there when Miss Blake come in that day and set down 
there ; for I remember thinkin’ Nanny must ha’ shook 
that cushion up more’n usual, it looked so comfortable 
and high.” 

“I don’t wonder it’s flat, if Miss Blake set on’t,” 
giggled Mrs. Jackson, at which aunt Beulah’s face 
darkened so perceptibly that the good neighbor took 
her leave. Comedy to her was tragedy to the unhappy 
owner of the bonnet; and she had the sense to know 
she was alien to the spirit of the hour, and go home. 

“ But how did it get there? ” asked Sarah. 

“You tell,” replied Miss Beulah, “for I can’t. I 
do mistrust Jack.” 

“Jack said he hadn’t touched it, though; and it 
couldn’t get there without hands.” 

“Well, mabbe Jack don’t always say the thing that 
is. ‘ Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child,* 
Scriptur says ; and I guess he hain’t had enough of the 
rod o’ correction to drive it out of him yet. He’s the 
behavin’est youngster I ever see ; and I’m quite along 
in years, if I be spry.” 

“I’ll call him, aunty, and see what he’ll say this 
time.” 

“’Twon’t be no use: if he’s lied Once, he’ll lie 
twice. Scriptur says the Devil was a liar from the be- 
ginnin’ ; and I expect that means that lyin’ is ingrain. 
I never knowed it to be fairly knocked out of anybody 
yet, even when amazin’ grace wrastled with it. 
There’s Deacon Shubael Morse : why, he’s as good as 
gold; but them Morses is a proverb, you may say, and 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


141 


always hes ben, time out o’ mind,—born liars, so to 
speak. I’ve heerd Grandsir Larkin say, that, as fur 
back as he could call to mind, folks would say, — 

‘ Steal a horse, 

An’ b’lieve a Morse.’ 

But the deacon he’s a hero at prayer, and gives heaps 
to the s’cieties ; but he ain’t reely to be relied on. He’s 
sharper’n a needle to bargain with; and, if his word 
ain’t writ down in black and white, why, ’tain’t no¬ 
where. He don’t read no novils, nor play no cards: 
he’d jest as lives swear outright as do one or t’other. 
But I do say for’t, I’d ruther myself see him real honest 
than any o’ them things. I don’t believe in no sort o’ 
professin’ that falls short in practisin’ ; but I can’t 
somehow feel so real spry to blame the deacon as 
though he wa’n’t a Morse. But you call Jack any¬ 
how.” 

So Jack was called. 

He came in, with Janey, flushed, lovely, and dirty, 
trotting behind him, and was confronted with the 
bonnet. 

“Jack, did you hide it?” 

“ I hain’t touched your old bonnet. I said so be¬ 
fore.” 

An idea struck Sarah. 

“Janey,” she said sharply, “did you put aunty’s 
bonnet under the cushion? ” 

“Janey don’t ’member,” said the child, smiling as 
innocently as the conventional ch(}rub of ai-t. 

“Well, you must remember!” said Sarah, picking 
hei up from the floor, and setting her down with em* 
pnasis on the table. 


142 


SOMEBODY'S NEIGHBOES. 


Janey began to cry. 

“ Naughty Salah hurt Janey! and the piteous tfears 
coursed down her rosy, dust-smeared cheeks from those 
big blue eyes that looked like dew-drowned forget-me- 
nots. 

Aunt Beulah could not stand this. “You let that 
baby alone, Sarah! She don’t know enough to be 
naughty, bless her dear little soul! — There, there, 
don’t you cry a mite more, Janey. Aunty’ll give you 
ginger-cooky this very minute 1 ” 

And Janey was comforted with kisses and smiles and 
gingerbread, her face washed, and her curls softly 
turned on tender fingers ; while Jack, longing for gin¬ 
gerbread with the preternatural appetite of a growing 
boy, was sent off in disgrace. 

“I make no doubt you done it, you little rascal, and 
lied it out too. But I don’t b’lieve you no more for 
your lyin’ : so don’t look for no extries from me. 
Fellers like you don’t get gingerbread nor turnovers, 
now I tell you 1 ” 

How Jack hated her! How glad he was he had 
spoiled her bonnet! Shall I draw a moral here to 
adorn my tale ? No, dear reader : this is not a treatise 
on education. Miss Beulah was a good woman ; and if 
she made mistakes, like the rest of us, she took the 
consequences as the rest of us do; and the conse¬ 
quences of this spoiled bonnet were not yet ended. 

She felt as if she must have a new one for Sunday. 
She really did not know how to afford it; for she had 
promised to help Sarah, and in her eyes a promise was 
as sacred as an oath. And, as for giving up her sub 
sci’iptions to home missions, that would be a wilful sin. 
But, without a bonnet, slie could not go to meeting ; anv 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


143 


that was a sin too. So she put on her sun-bonnet; and 
taking the wreck of the Leghorn, carefully concealed 
in a paper, she set out after tea that same evening for 
a conference with Miss Beers, stopping at the post- 
oflSce as she went along. She found one letter await¬ 
ing her, and knew by the superscription that it was 
from a second-cousin of hers in Dartford, who had 
charge of such money of hers as was not in the sav¬ 
ings bank or Dartford and Oldbay Railroad stock, — a 
road paying steady dividends. But, besides the three 
or four thousands in these safe investments that Miss 
Beulah owned, she had two shares in a manufacturing 
company, and one in Dartford Bridge stock, from 
which her cousin duly remitted the annual dividends: 
so, knowing what was in the letter, for the tool com¬ 
pany’s payment was just due, she did not open it till 
she sat down in Miss Beers’s shop, and first opened the 
Leghorn to view. 

“ Of all things ! ” said Miss Beers, lifting up hands 
and eyes during Miss Beulah’s explanations. “And 
you can’t do nothing with it — never. Why, it’s fiat- 
ter’n a pancake. Well, you couldn’t expect nothing 
else, with Miss Blake on top on’t: she’d squash a baby 
out as thin as a tin plate if she happened to set on’t, 
which I do hope she won’t. See! the Leghorn’s all 
broke up. I told you ’twas dreadful brittle. And the 
ribbin is spoiled entire. You can’t never clean laven- 
ler, nor yet satin, it frays so. And the lace is all gum : 
anyway, that’s gone. Might as well chuck the hull 
into the fire.” 

“So do, Mary Jane, so do. I never want to set 
£Ve^ on’t again. I haven’t no patience with that boy 
now, and the bunuit riles me to look at. I do wanL to 


144 


SOMEBODY S NEIGHBOKS. 


do right by the boy, but it goes against the grain 
dreadful. I mistrust I shall have to watch and pray 
real hard before I can anyway have patience with him. 
I tell you he’s a cross to ’Liza as well as to me. But 
don’t let’s talk about him. What have you got that’ll 
do for a bunnit for me ? ’ ’ 

Then the merits of the various bonnets in IMlss 
Beers’s small stock were canvassed. A nice black 
chip suited aunt Beulah well; and a gray corded ribbon, 
with a cluster of dark pansies, seemed just the thing 
for trimming. In fact, she liked it, and with good 
reason, better than the Leghorn ; but it was expensive. 
All the materials, though simple, were good and rich. 
Try as she would. Miss Beers could not get it up for 
less than six dollars, and that only allowed tw:^nty-five 
cents for her own work. The alternative was a heavy 
coarse straw, which she proposed to deck with a 
yellow-edged black ribbon, and put some gold-eyed 
black daisies inside. But Miss Beulah did want the 
chip. 

‘"Let’s see,” said she. “Mabbe this year’s divi¬ 
dend is seven per cent: ’tis once in a while. I’ll see 
what cousin Joseph says. If ’tain’t more than usual, 
I must take the straw.” 

But cousin Joseph had to tell her, that owing to 
damage by flood and Are, as well as a general disturb¬ 
ance of business all over the country, the C. A. Com¬ 
pany paid no dividend this year. 

“ Then I sha’n’t have no bunnit,” said Miss Larkin 
firmly. 

“ Why, you’ve got to have some kind of a bunnit,* 
said the amazed Miss Beers. 

“ I hain’t got to if I can’t.” 


MISS Beulah’s boi^net. 


145 


“But why can’t ye, Beulah? All your money and 
all your dividends ain’t in that comp’ny.” 

“Well, there’s other uses for money this year be¬ 
sides bunnits.” 

“ You can’t go to meetin’.” 

“ I can stay to home.” 

“Why, Beulah Larkin, I’ll trust you, and wel¬ 
come.” 

“ But I won’t be trusted. I never was, and I never 
will be. What if I should up and die? ” 

“]’d sue the estate,” practically remarked Miss 
Beers. 

“No: ‘out of debt, out of danger,’ mother always 
said, and I believe in’t. I shall hate to stay to home 
Sundays, but I can go to prayer-meetin’ in my slat 
bunnit well enough.” 

“Why, the church’ll deal with ye, Beulah, if ye 
neglect stated means of grace.” 

“Let ’em deal,” was the undaunted answer. Miss 
Beulah had faced the situation, arranged it logically, 
and accepted it. She had promised Sarah fifteen dol¬ 
lars in June. She had lost a dividend of twelve dollars 
on which she had reckoned with certainty; five dollars 
was due to home missions; and, with her increased 
family, there would be no margin for daily expenses. 
There were twenty dollars in the savings bank over and 
above the five hundred she had laid up for a rainy day, 
and left in her will, made and signed but last week, to 
little Janey. On this she would not trench, come what 
might, except in case of absolute distress; and the 
wenty dollars were sacred to Sarah and home mis¬ 
sions. But thxS was her private affair: she would not 
make the poverty of her niece known abroad, or the 


146 


somebody’s neighbors. 


nature of her will. If the church chose to deal with 
her, it might; but her lips should never open to ex 
plain, — a commonplace martyrdom enough, and less 
than saintly because so much of human pride and 
self-will mingled in its suffering; yet honesty and up¬ 
rightness are so scarce in these days as to make even 
such a sturdy witness for them respectable, and many 
a woman who counts herself a model of sanctity might 
shrink from a like daily ordeal. But aunt Beulah set 
her face as a flint, and pursued her way in silence. 
June came and went; and with it went Sarah to her 
expectant bridegroom in Chicago, from whence a paper 
with due notice of her marriage presently returned. 
Aunt Beulah strove hard to make both ends meet 
in her housekeeping, and, being a close manager, 
succeeded. There was no margin, not even twenty-five 
spare cents to take Janey to the circus ; though she cut 
aunt Beulah’s heart with entreaties to be taken to see 
“ lions an’ el’phants,” and said, “ P’ease take Janey,” 
in a way to melt a stone. For to get food enough to 
satisfy Jack was in itself a problem. Often and often 
the vexed spinster declared to Nanny, her sympathizing 
handmaid, — 

“ ’ Tain’t no use a-tryin’ to fill him. He’s holler 
down to his boots, I know. He eat six b’iled eggs for 
breakfast, and heaps of johnny-cake, besides a pint o’ 
milk, and was as sharp-set for dinner as though he’d 
ben a-mowin’ all the forenoon. ’Lizy says he’s grow- 
in’ •; if he grows anyways accordin’ to what he eats, 
lie’ll be as big as Goliath of Gath, as sure as you’re 
born. I don’t begrudge the boy reasonable vittles, 
out I can’t buy butcher’s-meat enough to satisfy him 
noway. And as to garden sass, he won’t eat none. 


MISS BEULAH’S BONNET. 


147 


That would be real fillin’ if he would. Thanks be to 
praise ! he likes Indian. Pudding and johnny-cake do 
help a sight.” 

But while aunt Beulah toiled and moiled, and filled 
her wide measure of charity toward these widowed and 
fatherless with generous hand, the church, mightily 
scandalized at her absence from its services, was pre¬ 
paring to throw a shell into her premises. It was all 
very well to say to Miss Beers that she was not afraid 
of such a visitation; but a trouble at hand is of quite 
another aspect than a trouble afar off. Her heart quailed 
and fluttered, when, one July afternoon, Nanny ushered 
into the dark, cool parlor Deacon Morse and Deacon 
Flint, come to ask her why she had not attended 
church since the middle of last May, when she was in 
usual health and exercise of her faculties. Miss Beu¬ 
lah, however, was equal to the occasion. She faced 
the deacons sternly, but calmly. 

“It is so,” she said, when they had finished their 
accusation. “ I hain’t ben to meetin’ for good cause. 
You can’t say I’ve did any thing that’s give occasion 
to the enemy more’n this. I’ve attended reg’lar to 
prayer-meetin’s and sewin’-circle. I’ve give as usual to 
home missions. You can’t say I’ve made any scandal, 
or done nothin’ out o’ rule, save an’ except stayin’ at 
home sabbath days ; and my family has attended punc- 
tooally.” 

But this did not satisfy the deacons: they pressed 
Cor a reason. 

“If you would free your mind, sister Larkin, it 
would be for the good of the church,”, said Deacon 
Morse. 

“Mabbe ’twouldn’t be altogether to your likin’ 


148 


somebody’s neighbors. 


deacon, if I did free my mind. Seems as though 
stayin’ at home from meetin’ wa’n’t no worse’n sandin’ 
sugar an’ waterin’ rum; and I never heerd you was 
dealt with for them things.” 

' Deacon Morse was dumb, but Deacon Flint took up 
tlie discourse. 

“ Well, sister Larkin, we didn’t know but what you 
was troubled in your mind.” 

“ I ain’t! ” snapped Miss Beulah. 

“ Or perhaps was gettin’ a mite doubtful about doc¬ 
trines, or suthin’.” 

“No, I ain’t. I go by the ’Sembly’s Catechism, 
and believe in every word on’t, questions and all.” 

“Well, you seem to be a leetle contumacious, sister 
Larkin, so to speak : if you had a good reason, why, of 
course, you’d be willin’ to tell it.” 

This little syllogism caught Miss Beulah. 

“ Well, if you must know, I hain’t got no bunnit.” 

The deacons stared mutually; and Deacon Morse, 
forgetful of his defeat, and curious, as men naturally 
f,re, asked abruptly, “ Why not? ” 

“ Cause Miss Blake sot on it.” 

The two men looked at each other in blank amaze¬ 
ment, and shook their heads. Here was a .pitfall. 
Was it proper, dignified, possible, to investigate this 
truly feminine tangle ? * They were dying to enter into 
particulars, but ashamed to do so: nothing was left 
but retreat. Miss Beulah perceived the emergency, 
and chuckled grimly. This was the last straw. The 
deacons rose as one man, and said, “ Good-day,” with 
An accent of reprobation, going their ways in deep 
doubt as to what they should report to the church, 
wliich certainly would not receive with proper gravity 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


149 


the announcement that Miss Beulah Larkin could not 
come to church because the minister’s wife had sat on 
her Sunday bonnet. The strife of tongues, however, 
did not spare aunt Beulah, if the deacons did ; and for 
a long time Miss Beers, who had the key to the situa¬ 
tion, did not hear any of the gossip, partly because 
she had been ill of low fever, and then gone to her 
sister’s in Dartford for change of air, and partly, that, 
during July and August, the sewing-circle was tempo¬ 
rarily suspended. But it renewed its sessions in Sep¬ 
tember ; and Miss Beers was an active member, sure 
to be at the first meeting. It was then and there she 
heard the scorn and jeers and unfounded stories come 
on like a tidal wave to overwhelm her friend’s char¬ 
acter. She listened a few minutes in silence, growing 
more and more indignant. Then, for she was a little 
woman as far as stature went, she mounted into a 
chair, and demanded the fioor in her own fashion. 

“Look a-here ! ” said she, her shrill voice soaring 
above the busy clapper of tongues below. “It’s a 
burnin’ shame to say a hard word about Beulah Lar¬ 
kin. She’s as good a woman as breathes the breath 
of life, and I know the hull why and wherefore she 
hain’t ben to meetin’. She hain’t had no bunnit. I 
made her as tasty a bunnit as ever you see last spring ; 
and that jackanapes of a boy he chucked it under the 
rocker-cushion jest to plague her, and Miss Blake she 
come in and sot right down on it, not knowin’, of 
course, that ’twas there ; and, as if that wa’n’t enough 
to spile it” (an involuntary titter seemed to express 
the sense of the audience that it was), “that other 
sprig, she took and upsot a pitcher of milk onto the 
cushion, and you’d better believe that bunnit was a 
sight! ” 


150 


somebody's NEtGHBOES. 


“Why didn’t she get another?” severely asked 
Deacon Morse’s wife. 

“Why? Why, becos she’s a-most a saint. Her 
dividends some on ’em didn’t come in, and she’d prom¬ 
ised that biggest girl fifteen dollars to help her get out 
to her feller at Chicago, for Sary told me on’t herself; 
and then she gives five’ dollars to hum missions every 
year, and she done it this year jest the same ; and she’s 
took that widder and them orphans home all summer, 
and nigh about worked her head off for ’em, and never 
charged a cent o’ board; and therefor and thereby 
she hain’t had no money to buy no bunnit, and goes 
to prayer-meetin’ in her calico slat.” 

A rustle of wonder and respect went through the 
room as the women moved uneasily in their chairs, 
exchanged glances, and said, “My!” which inspired 
Hiss Beers to go on. 

“ And here everybody’s ben a-talkin’ bad about her, 
while she’s ben a real home-made kind of a saint. I 
know she don’t look it; but she doos it, and that’s a 
sight better. I don’t b’lieve there’s one woman in 
forty could ha’ had the grit and the perseverance to do 
what she done, and hold her tongue about it too. I 
know I couldn’t for one.” 

“ She shouldn’t ha’ let her good be evil spoken of,” 
said Mrs. Morse with an air of authority. 

“Idono as anybody had oughter have spoken evil 
of her good,” was Miss Beers’s dry answer; and Mrs. 
Horse said no more. 

But such a warm and generous vindication touched 
many a feminine heart, which could appreciate Miss 
Beulah’s self-sacrifice better than the deacons could 
There was an immediate clustering and chattering 


MISS Beulah’s bonnet. 


151 


among the good women, who, if they did love a bit of 
gossip, were none the less kindly and well-meaning; 
and presently a spokeswoman approached Miss Beers 
with the proposition, that, if she would make Miss 
Beulah a handsome bonnet, a dozen or more had 
volunteered to buy the materials. 

“Well,’’ said Miss Mary Jane, wiping her specta¬ 
cles, “ this is real kind ; and I make no doubt but what 
Beulah’d think the same, though she’s a master-hand 
to be independent, and some folks say proud. Mabbe 
she is; but I know she couldn’t but take it kind of 
friends and neighbors to feel for her. However, there 
ain’t no need on’t. It seems that Sary’s husband ain’t 
very forehanded, and she’s got a dreadful taste for the 
millinery business : so she’s gone to work in one of the 
fust shops there, and is gettin’ great wages, for her; 
and only yesterday there come a box by esrpress for 
Miss Beulah, with the tastiest bunnit in it I ever see in 
my life, — good black velvet, with blaek satin kinder 
puffed into the brim, and a dark-green wing to one side 
of the band, and a big bow in under a jet buckle be¬ 
hind. I tell you it was everlastin’ pretty. Sary she 
sent a note to say she hoped aunt Beulah’d give her 
the pleasure to accept it; for she’d knowed all along 
how that she was the cause of her goin’ without a 
bunnit all summer (I expect her ma had writ to her), 
and she felt real bad about it. You’d better b’lieve 
Beulah was pleased.” 

And Miss Beulah was pleased again when the women 
from the village began to call on her even more fre¬ 
quently than before, and express cordial and friendly 
interest in a way that surprised her, all unaware as she 
was of Miss Beers’s enthusiastic vindication of her 


152 


somebody’s neighboes. 


character before the sewing-circle. Yet, poor, dear, 
silly old woman, —only a woman, after all, — nothing 
BO thrilled and touched her late-awakened heart as little 
Janey’s soft caresses and dimpled patting hands on 
that sallow old face, when she climbed into her lap the 
next Sunday, and, surveying Miss Beulah’s new bonnet, 
exclaimed, with her silvery baby voice, “Bitty, pitty 
bonnet! ” 

Jack did not say any thing about it, nor did the con¬ 
gregation, though on more than one female face beamed 
a furtive congratulatory smile ; and Deacon Flint looked 
at Deacon Morse across the aisle. 

If there is any moral to this story, as no doubt 
there should be, it lies in the fact that Mrs. Blake 
never again sat down in a chair without first lifting the 
cushion. 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


“ 'TIb true, 'tis pity: 

Pity ’tis 'tis true.** 

“Well,** said Calvary Culver, sometimes called 
Cal, and not infrequently Cal Cul, by such as believed 
in the old adage that brevity is the soul of wit,— 
“well, my mind’s nigh about made up. Mother’s 
kinder feeble: it’s time there was more folks to our 
house. I guess I’ll git married.** 

“Haw, haw, haw!** burst from the audience, — a 
group of waiters and loungers in the country store, 
where Cal stood, with his back against the counter, 
whittling and spitting. 

“ ’Tain’t no larfin matter, boys,** he went on. 
“You may think it’s suthin* smart to git married, but 
mebbe you’ll find ’tain’t all honey-sugar pie. Look at 
Deacon Flint, now! I tell ye his wife’s as afeard o* 
him as Parson Robbins is of the Devil; and you can’t 
say no more’n that, now can ye? ” 

“Oh, say!” began another lounger: “you hain’t 
heerd, hev ye, about the parson’s last tussle with the 
adversary? ’* 

Nobody had. He was unanimously urged to gc on. 

“ Well, you know it hain’t ben real fust-rate sugarin’ 
weather: it ha’n’t thew days, though it’s friz consid- 
er’ble night-times. But it’s kinder late for tappin’, 

153 


154 


somebody’s neighbors. 


anj^ay, ’cordin’ to the year: so parson he reckoned 
he’d be amazin’ forehanded this year, and git his holes 
bored, and spouts drove in, and buckets set, so’s to be 
on hand, ye see. Now, them trees never dripped a 
drop a Thursday, nor a Friday, nor a Saturday: three 
days the buckets hung right there, and was empty ; but 
sabba’-day it come round real warm, the sun shone 
powerful, and, when he went to the bush Monday 
momin’, the sap troughs and buckets was brimmin’ over 
full, as sure as you’re born! What does parson do 
but take and tip ’em all up ; and Jim Beebe — he was 
behind him, ’cause his bush is over the fence, and he 
knowed sap had run by that time — Jim heerd him say, 
‘ I know thy works, Satan, tempting me with Lord’s 
Day sap. Get thee behind me! ’ And he up and 
tipped over every drop outer the ground, and went 
off.” 

“ Jeerus’lem! ” “Don’t he beat!” “Gosh!” 
“Darnation!” and one rustic expletive after another 
chorussed this tale. 

Cal Culver kept silence, shifting from one foot to 
the other; then he spoke meditatively, as if he had 
considered the subject before. “ Parson Robbins does 
take consider’ble comfort out o’ the Devil, don’t he? ” 

“ Comfort! ” echoed the crowd. 

“Well, mebbe you wouldn’t call it that exackly; 
but the idee is, he gits somethin’ to spend his grit on 
that way that’s orthydox. You see, natur’s awful 
strong in Parson Robbins, and by natur’ he’d orter ha* 
ben a fightin’ man: he’s got it in him. I’ve seen him 
when I knowed he nigh about ached to pitch in and 
knock a feller down. He’d ha’ fit Injuns like all pos¬ 
sessed, ef they’d ben around sence he growed up. Now 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


155 


what’s in a man, ’cordin’ to my belief, ’s got to come 
out o’ him some way or niither. Ef he’s a good man, 
I s’pose it’s kinder made over, sanctified like, ef it’s 
giit, or lyin’, or brag, or any sech thing.” 

“Kinder difficult to sanctify lyin’,” dryly remarked 
]\Ir. Battle, the village store-keeper. 

“Well, ’tis, that’s a fact; but I s’pose ef it was 
b’iled over into ’cuteness, and sarcumventions of the 
Evil One, and sech, ’twouldn’t do no great o’ harm? 
Might come in useful in waterin’ rum, and sandin’ 
sugar.” 

Mr. Battle heard a noise at the back-door just then: 
and Cal winked deliberately at the crowd, who wanted 
to grin, but dare not; for most of them were chalked 
up on that dreadful slate behind the door with many 
marks, and all of them lilred rum, with or without 
water. 

“Parson doos pay quite a sight of ’tention to the 
Devil,” sighed and squeaked a bent old man,—bent 
and worn with rheumatism, that rack and thumb-screw 
of the New-England climate. “ ’Pears to me some¬ 
times as though he talked a sight more ’bout him than 
’bout the Lord above.” 

“ I expect he has to,” answered Cal Culver. “ He’s 
round here in Bassett a good deal the most o’ the two.” 

“You look out!” called the speaker who had told 
about the sap-troughs: “you’ll git ketched up yet, as 
Mat Lines did t’other day. He said the south eend o’ 
Bassett was as bad as hell; and I’m blamed if they 
didn’t take him up for’t, and fine him.” 

“ ’Twon’t do to tell the truth allers,” replied Culver. 
“ But, boys, to go back to fust principles, I be ser’ous- 
ly a mind to git married.” 


156 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“ AVTio ye goin’ to mary, Cal? ” inquired Mr. Battle. 

“ Well, I dono as I know myself, — some smart likely 
gal.- 

Here was a general shout, for Cal Culver was the 
village do-nothing. The owner of a small red house 
and “home lot,” which his father had left him, the 
sole proceeds of a long life spent at a cobbler’s b(;nch, 
Cal acted as if work were as needless to his life as it 
was unpleasant; that is, hard work. He managed to 
raise enough potatoes and Indian corn on the two 
acres to keep his mother and himself in meal and the 
great vegetable staple. If he felt lilie it in the tune of 
it, he raised bush-beans along by the fence; and in 
among the corn it was easy to drop a few pumpkin- 
seeds. The apple-trees in the door-yard produced their 
crops without trouble, and “ garden-sass ” was left to 
his mother’s care : if she wanted it, she could raise it. 
Poor old woman! she had enough to do with loom, 
spinning-wheel, and needle, besides the simple house¬ 
wifery of her time and means ; so that the garden only 
bloomed with such flowers as were ha,rdy and perennial, 
— deep-red roses and glowing white ones ; hollyhocks 
in stately spires ; stiff sweet-williams, and ragged beds 
of moss-pink; little Burgundy roses no bigger than a 
copper cent, and trim as an old maid ; and long wreaths 
of cinnamon roses, sweet as the luxuriant blooms of 
far-away Cashmere, but stinted in leaf and growth and 
blossom, as if they pined and half died in bitter North¬ 
ern airs and grudging sunshine. There was sage too, 
and summer-savory ; for there was a pig always. The 
labor of feeding it bore hard on Cal; but who could 
live without pork? — pork that meant pies, doughnuts, 
Buet-pudding, sausages in winter; cheeks smoked under 


CAL CULVEL and THE DEVIL. 157 

a barrel, and hung in the shed; slabs of fat, salt and 
unctuous, adding savor and strength to a bailed dinner 
or a “ fry of any sort. No, indeed ! a pig v^as the 
great necessity of life, and must be fed if they two 
went hungry. 

But Cal was a mighty hunter, so that food was seldom 
wanting. He could snare partridges, kill woodcock and 
quail with his old shot-gun, bring home squirrels by 
the dozen, and set rabbit-traps with unfailing success ; 
trout leaped to his hook ; and, as to perch and sunfish, 
they were to be had for the asking at his hands, and 
the ponds in winter were full of pickerel: more than 
he and Granny Culver could use found their way to the 
store or the squire’s, and resulted in rum, tea, or maple- 
sugar,— luxuries of life. Yet Cal was a shiftless, 
thriftless fellow; shrewd, witty, keen-sighted, and — 
lazy. He loved to roam over the land with rod or gun, 
to lie on the fragrant sand of a pine-wood and sleep 
away sultry noons, to hang about the big stove in the 
store in cold weather and take a hot “nip” of rum 
toddy, while he told and heard stories and cracked 
jokes ; but how he hated to plough, to hoe, to chop, to 
break stone, to mow, to tend mill! Parson Robbins 
and he were always at odds, and no wonder. The 
parson was a fiery, positive, set, energetic little man, 
with enough executive power in him to have been presi¬ 
dent of six railroads at a time, — a man who could not 
be idle a moment, who rose early and read late, who 
was by nature a belligerent, autocratic, eager, earnest 
man, and was set down in a little country parish. Cal 
was right: to fight something was the necessity of the 
parson’s nature ; his very face was aggressive. Modern 
clerg 3 "men, who preach one sermon a week, are victims 


158 


SOMEBODY S NEIGHBORS. 


to dyspepsia, and use long words by the thousand to 
express what they don’t mean ; who dabble in aisthetics 
and affinities, and have spiritual ups and downs like 
the cradle-holes in a winter-drifted road, because they 
Jiave so little work that they have time to waste in 
studying themselves and their feelings, — would have 
made Parson Robbins stare. Three sermons a Sunday, 
and a lecture Thursday evening; prayer-meetings in 
the ends of the town alternately twice a week ; visiting 
such of his flock as needed it, and all of them occa¬ 
sionally, and writing sermons every week with con¬ 
scientious diligence ; splitting wood, hoeing corn, and, 
in short, farming his few acres by way of amusement 
and relaxation; his only reading the county weekly 
paper, and the few solid volumes of theology on his 
bedroom shelves, — what a life is this in comparison 
with that of to-day? Five hundred dollars a year were 
well earned, and hard earned too. No wonder that the 
gospel was a daily reality to this prophet in the wilder¬ 
ness, and the Devil a real and roaring personage, to be 
baffled, fought, defied, and exorcised: and no wonder 
that learning to endure hardness as a good soldier of 
Christ Jesus, and to put on the whole armor of God, 
this militant parson longed to test that hardness, and use 
those weapons in lawful warfare with the enemy ; and he 
did. He did not forget God, but he could trust him. 
The Devil was persistent and at hand ; and he preached 
about, prayed at, and wrestled with him to an extent 
incredible to us who talk about an impersonal principle 
of evil, and consider that awful solitude in the wilder¬ 
ness and its agonies only a dramatization. 

To Parson Robbins, as to Luther, the Enemy was a 
‘eal and active being ; and the flock whom he gathered 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


159 


Into the old red meeting-house accepted his belief with 
equal earnestness, except a few born sceptics who 
could not believe in any thing, and a few sturdy sin¬ 
ners who would not. 

Even Cal Culver believed in the Devil; but he was 
too lazy to repent of his sins and lead a new life, — far 
too lazy to begin a warfare that must last as long aa 
he did, and keep mind and body on the alert. To-day 
he was not so much troubled about Satan as he had 
been sometimes. His mind was given to another sub¬ 
ject, — whom he should marry ; for marriage was get¬ 
ting to be the only way out of his difl3culties. His 
mother grew feebler and feebler; and he contemplated 
with terror the idea that he must do the work himself, 
and take care of her too, unless somebody stepped in 
to take the burden off his shoulders. He had an¬ 
nounced his intention in the store, partly to fix it in his 
own mind beyond recall, partly in the hope of some 
gratuitous advice being offered ; but nobody there had 
any to give. It did not occur to any of them that 
Cal was in earnest, or, if he was, that any girl in 
Bassett would look at him in a matrimonial light. But 
this was not Cal’s opinion. He knew he was hand¬ 
some. The straight, regular features, big blue eyes, 
and golden hair and beard he had seen mirrored iu 
many a silent forest pool, told him a true story ; and 
when a hearty laugh parted the full red lips, and 
showed his regular white teeth, and his eyes fiashed 
with fun, or glittered with humor or craft, the too 
perfect face wore an added charm of bright expression. 
He was tall, too, straight, and strong, and being the 
only man in all the village, old or young; whose beard 
oad been allowed its natural growth, simply because 


160 


somebody’s neighbors. 


he was too lazy to shave, he was a marked figure 
wherever he went, and in constant request at raisings, 
apple-bees, and huskings, both as help in the work, 
which being only occasional, and followed by a feast, 
was not objectionable to him, and also as “fust-rate 
company,’’ — a guest who could play all sorts of games, 
and dance all night, where any householder dared 
admit oi dancing. But, though the girls all liked his 
society, none of them wanted to marry him; and to¬ 
day, after he had waited for some expression of assent 
01 opinion from the knot of his comrades in the store, 
and waited in vain, he sauntered off to find his special 
crony, J im Beebe, and get him to go fishing. An hour 
or two after, they were both embarked in a dug-out on 
Long Lake, diligently waiting for something to bite, 
and Cal began discourse in a low tone, out of consid¬ 
eration for the fishes. 

“ Say, Jim, I’m a-goin’ to git married.” 

“ Be ye? ” Jim answered meditatively, giving a gen¬ 
tle motion to his rod to see if the line was free. 

“Yes, I be ; but, darn it all! I dono who I’ll marry 
yet, and I’ve got to hurry up. Mother’s dreadful mis- 
er’ble along back.” 

“Kinder sure somebody’ll hev ye, ’pears to me,” 
sarcastically remarked Jim. 

“ Well, what ef I be? Gals is most gener’ly ready 
to say snip when a good-lookin’ young feller says 
snap. I’ll bet ye a cooky the fust gal I ask says yes 
right off.” 

Jim was disgusted with this conceit: he entertained 
no doubt that any girl in Bassett would marry him, but 
Cal Culver was another sort of person. Men have not 
radically changed within the last hundred years, and 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


161 


both Calvary and Jim might find comrades to-day 
However, Jim held his tongue, and Cal went on, — 

“ Trouble is to find jest the right one. There’s lots 
o’ folks in the world ; but, come to marryin’, you want 
jest the right critter. It’s a life bizness, you see ; and 
what on airth kin a man do ef he gets haltered up tight 
to the wrong un? ” 

Cal was not ‘‘ of the fashion of these times ; ” for as 
yet divorce facilities were unknown to decent Con¬ 
necticut, and “till death” did not mean the “dying 
daily ” it seems to now. 

“What sort o’ head-marks be you sot on speci- 
fyin’ ? ” dryly remarked Jim, as he gave a little twitch 
to his rod, and landed a round, fat little “punkin- 
seed ” in the bottom of the boat. 

“ Well, I want a smart un, —that, or nothin’.” 

“ I knowed that afore ye told me: there’s got to be 
smartness some’eres,” curtly put in Jim, pushing an 
anhappy worm on to the end of his hook. 

“ Git out! ” laughed Cal. “ You shouldn’t twit on 
fac’s, Jim. I’m smart enough when I’m a mind ter, 
but I’d jest as lieves other folks would take a stiddy 
job on’t. I want a strong, healthy gal too. Mother 
she can’t do a heap more: she’s failin’, that’s the 
truth on’t. Somebody’s got to step round lively to our 
house while she lasts. I want somebody that’s got 
faculty too: fact is, a woman that hain’t got faculty 
ain’t good for nothin’.” 

“Mebbe ye might try for PoUythi Bangs,” put in 
Jim, who was getting interested in the matter at last. 

“Well, I declare for’t, I hadn’t had a thought o’ 
PoUythi Bangs. She is a masterpiece for smartness, 
now, ain’t she?” 


162 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“Steel traps ain’t nothin’ to her,” assented Jim: 
“she’s too smart a’most. But she’s got amazin’ 
faculty, everybody says. I dono, though, as I should 
reelly hanker to marry her, Cal: them Bangses is a 
dreadful queer lot.” 

“Well, I don’t calkerlate to marry the hull on ’em, 
Jim. I guess I could hold my own with Polly, ef she 
is reel masterful. Come to that, I’ve the biggest 
bones anyway. I can shake her up good.” 

Jim shook his head. He did not feel sure that 
physical force could put down Pollythi Bangs, and 
proceeded, as delicately as he knew how, to urge this 
question. 

“Well, I guess ye could, ef it come to that. But, 
Lord, how be ye goin’ to stop her tongue ? She’ll talk 
ye lame and blind, ef ye stroke her the wrong way ; and 
she’ll hetchel the old woman mortally, I be afraid.” 

“Queer, ain’t it?” Cal said, dropping his hook 
slowly into the water, having mated Jim’s pumpkin- 
seed while he talked, — “queer how women-folks do 
ketch fire, come to git ’em together. The best on ’em 
can’t live in the same house two days ’thout some 
darned thing or ’nother sprouts up to set ’em by the 
ears. It doos beat all.” 

“ I expect Parson Robbins would say the Devil comes 
in thirdsman. Cal, them times.” 

“ I guess there ain’t no special call for an extry 
Devil. ’Riginal sin’s actyve enough in ’em most times ; 
but they’re reel handy to hev around, for all that. I 
shall begin square and fair. Ef she wants to hetchel 
me, she kin try it on; but she’d better let the old 
Woman alone. ’Twon’t be for long anyway.” 

“ Don’t you reckon on that,” put in the experienced 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


1G3 


Jim. “ Old women last for ever ’n’ ever. They don’t 
know how to die when they git started. Lordy! look 
at granny. She’s ben prayed for more times in meet- 
in’. She’s ben dangerous forty times since I kin 
remember: but she hops up every time like a pa’tridge 
trap; and she’s ninety, come July, as sure as you’re 
born.” 

“Well, what do ye keep hevin’ her prayed for?” 
coolly suggested Cal; an idea that tickled Jim till he 
dropped his rod over the side, worn out with suppressed 
laughter, — suppressed, for fear of startling the perch 
and pumpkin-seeds, which were now tempting their 
fate with commendable alacrity. 

“ Cta Culver, you do beat all! ” he found breath to 
gasp at length. “ Why, ef I didn’t hand in no paper, 
Parson Robbins ud pray for her whether or no: so I 
might jest as well be kinder decent. But, ef you do 
go in for Pollythi Bangs, why, you ain’t noways blind¬ 
ed. I expect you know her, root and branch.” 

“ Jee-rusalem! I guess I do! Ain’t her folks gin 
the name to Squabble Hill? Their house is jest like 
a flock o’ blackbirds,—foreverlastin’ a-cacklin’ an’ 
jawin’ an’ takin’ to do: you can hear ’em nigh onto • 
quarter of a mile when you’re a-goin’ along the tum- 
piJie. But mother’s everlastin’ hard o’ hearin’: that’s 
a comfort, seein’ things is as they is.” 

“ I didn’t know as they was yit,” suggested Jim. 

“ Well, I guess there ain’t no great doubt but what, 
ef I make up my mind, she’ll make up her’n pretty 
much arter the same pattern. Polly hain’t had no great 
luck with company-keepin’, and she ain’t no chicJten 
nuther. I’ll fetch round there next sabba’-day night, 

I guess, and kinder let fall a hint. I didn’t want to 
rile her by bein’ too suddin.” 


164 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“I wouldn’t,” said Jim. “But look a-here, 
there’s suthin’ else to’t. I forgot for to tell ye, for I 
only heerd it yesterday. She’s hed a aunt, or suthin’, 
die over to Har’ford, that’s left her a couple o’ houseu 
there wuth quite a sum,—two or three thoiiean’, I 
expect.” 

“Do tell! Now, Jim, that kinder clinches me. 
I’m bound for Pollythi, sure, now. Means is a help, 
that’s a fact. I’d made up my mind pretty well 
afore: now I’m sartin.” 

All this time Pollythi Bangs was flying about the 
house at home, doing her annual spring-cleaning. 
Dreadful stage of human experience! Civilization has 
never softened its horrors, but rather added thereto. 
It is the crucial test before which all the amenities of 
life, its conveniences, its comforts, its elegancies, go 
down helplessly into the valley of humiliation. Furni¬ 
ture, hric-a-brac^ carpets, paintings, china, only exas¬ 
perate this insatiable epidemic, and give it more and 
more victims, till their number is legion. If Polly 
Bangs was cross over the lustration of a house with 
one carpet, two cracked looking-glasses, no sofa, blue- 
• and-white crockery, and pewter platters, — a house 
where soap and water could be slopped about with 
absolute freedom, and the whitewash-brush smeared 
liberally everywhere, — what would she have been, 
turned loose among Sevres, Dresden, Crown Derby, 
French porcelain, Japanese enamel, Bohemian glass, 
Venetian crystal; carpets of Persia, India, France, 
and England; furniture carved and upholstered as if 
for palaces ; priceless pictures ; paper of Eastlake and 
Morris ; and the ten thousand costly dusty bawbles of 
a modern mansion? Let lunatic-asylums answer. It 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIli. 


165 


f\re have gained much in these latter days, how much 
have we not lost? 

Polly was cross naturally: her mother was cross; 
her father fairly growled. The Bangs temper was 
proverbial in Bassett, and now it was in active exer¬ 
cise ; for house-cleaning would test an angel’s amia¬ 
bility, and tries that of common mortals to the 
extremest limit, even unto utter failure : why should a 
bad temper fail to find it exasperating? But how 
much more furious would Pollythi have been, had she 
known of that discussion as to her future which was 
being held on the fair breast of Long Lake, while the 
budding trees shed soft shadows into the water, white 
clouds gently sailed along its depths, the fragrant 
reluctant breath of a New-England spring sighed 
tenderly over wave and shore, and Cal and Jim slaugh¬ 
tered little fishes with relentless hook and line as they 
discussed a deeper angling with a livelier bait. Would 
she ever have risen to their hook? Never! But no 
officious telephone betrayed them: time and space 
kept the secret with their ancient honesty. They are 
demoralized now ; and that which is spoken in the bed¬ 
chamber is declared on the house-top,—even on the 
house-top miles away. Who shall ever know safety of 
speech again ? 

Pollythi Bangs was all that Jim Beebe had painted 
her, and perhaps more,—strong of body and will both, 
imperious, quick-tempered, and absolutely unrestrained 
in speech. She inherited all these traits from a father 
and mother so alike in character that they never were 
at peace with each other or their child. Peace, indeed, 
was a state unknown in the Bangs family; and so 
uotorious were their quarrels, so continuous their wars 


166 


somebody’s neighbors. 


and fightings, that the hill halfway up which their old 
farm-house stood was known all through Bassington 
township as Squabble Hill, — a name borne by it to¬ 
day. But, if Polly Bangs was a scold, she was also 
smart, a great worker, and a woman who could turn 
her hand to any thing. She could weave any sort of 
fabric known to domestic looms in those days; she 
could out-spin any other woman in the town, having 
once, in a contest of wheels, spun seven run of yam 
between sunrise and sunset, — an achievement that 
would have half-killed any other woman (two run being 
counted a legitimate day’s work), but which seemed to 
have no effect on Pollythi’s strength of nerve and 
muscle. Her bread was town-talk ; her quilts elaborate 
beyond every thing, the seven-stars pattern and the 
sun-rising-over-the-Alleghany-Mountains pattern hav¬ 
ing originated in her own accomplished brain. As for 
knitting, and yeast, fine darning, election-cake, train¬ 
ing-day gingerbread, and pot-pie, she was simply 
wonderful. Her root-beer always foamed, her nut- 
cakes fried just right, and her pork and beans were 
inimitable. These things never are the forte of amia¬ 
ble, gentle, “ pretty-behaved ” women. Energy, force, 
Sturm und Drang, make the world go round, not soft 
strokes: they have their own power, but it is not the 
power of leverage. Yet Polly had a certain rough 
kindliness about her when every thing went right. 

“Narcissa’s nature, tolerably mild, 

To make a wash would hardly stew a child.” 

She did not like children or animals; but she would 
fish a screaming infant out of the brook if need were, 
and had been known not to kick a lame dog that lay 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 167 

down on the door-step. It was wonderful to her 
mother that Polly had no lovers. People who live 
together get used sometimes to each other’s faults. A 
husband will ignore a great deal in a wife, because he 
does not notice her short-comings as others do who do 
not come under their disturbance daily; and a mother 
will love and admire the spoiled child who is a nuisance 
to everybody else about her. Polly was handsome, 
after a fashion: she had hard black eyes, strong curl¬ 
ing dark hair, red cheeks, strong white teeth, and a 
good tall figure, angular and awkward to be sure. But 
roundness,, grace, dimples, are not the rule in New 
England; and Polly was better-looking than most of 
her compeers : yet she had attained the respectable age 
of thirty-five, without an offer, even from a widower, 
when Cal Culver took heart of grace, and asked her to 
marry him, after a three-weeks’ courtship, following 
directly on his consultation with Jim Beebe. 

Pollythi neither said yes nor no on that interesting 
occasion, nor did she go through the ordinary formulas 
of speech or action: she blushed not, neither sighed, 
nor drooped her head on Cal’s shoulder. She was too 
far off for such tender demonstration, if she had in¬ 
tended it: so she sat bolt-upright in her chair, and 
answered audibly, I’ll think on’t.” 

“Well, I wisht you would,” manfully responded 
Cal. 

He knew and she knew, and she knew he knew she 
knew (bless the English language!) that there was no 
particular love in the matter. Cal wanted a capable 
wife; and Pollythi, being a woman, fully understood 
that it is more creditable to an individual of the weaker 
sex to be anybody’s wife than nobody’s. She knew 


somebody’s ^eighboks. 


i'58 

very well that Calvary Culver was a shiftless, lazy, 
penniless fellow, who wanted her to help him: hand¬ 
some, to be sure; but, if Polly’s heart warmed the 
least to his goodly presence, her head was cool enough 
to chill such absurd flames immediately. Yet even 
that very ‘ ‘ level ’ ’ head gave a casting vote in favor of 
Cal. If she married him, she would have her own 
house and her own way ; for she justly reckoned Mrs. 
Culver as a cipher in the family. At home her mother 
and her father both “drank delight of battle” with 
her, and not infrequently got the victory, when they 
were astute enough to join forces against her. But 
with Cal she could hold her own, and take on her the 
state and privileges of a matron; while now she was 
fast sinking into that pm’gatory of women, — old 
maidenhood. So she “ thought on’t,” as she promised, 
and thought favorably; and in due time brisk little 
Parson Bobbins published the banns of marriage be¬ 
tween “Calvary Culver of this place, and Pollythi 
Bangs of Squabble Hill,” greatly to the edification, if 
not the amusement, of his congregation. Some smiled, 
and some shook their heads; but the parson looked 
like a small thunder-cloud, and, before the day was 
over, effectually turned the thoughts of his flock from 
Cal and Polly in this wise : — 

It seems Jim Beebe had laid a bet with Squire Battle 
that Parson Robbins couldn’t preach a sermon without 
mentioning the Devil — literally his hete noir^ — at 
least a dozen times, and agreed with him that they both 
should keep count the next Sunday, and so settle this 
peculiar wager. Jim accordingly went to meeting 
armed with a paper of big pins, and at each mention 
tf the Devil made by the parson stucE one of them 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


169 


upright in the front-edge of the gallery where he sat. 

X fine row they made before that day was over, — 
thirteen for the morning sermon, fifteen for the after¬ 
noon’s discourse, and positively twenty in the evening. 

Jim won his bet, and triumphed. Brief exultation. 
The parson’s keen eye had noticed his fixed attention, 
and a peering ray of sunshine had twinkled on the new 
pins. Parson Robbins was pleased. He was a man, 
after all, of mortal flesh and blood; and to have 
arrested the attention of such an incorrigible idler and 
“ chuckle-head” as he had more than once stigmatized 
Jim Beebe, did the natural man a deal of good, and 
imparted power and fervency to his address. He could 
not quite explain the pins, but tried hard to believe 
Jim was so absorbed in the discourse he did not know 
what he was about. Even so have I known a modern 
minister speak with pathetic gratification of the effect 
“ a few simple words ” of his from the pulpit had 
upon a certain volatile young lady accidentally present, 
whom he fondly supposed to be sobbing with emotion, 
and who, alas ! as I had the best reason to know, was j 
merely struggling, with hidden face and abased head, 
to conquer a fit of mighty laughter, brought about by 
the machinations of a wicked companion. But Parson 
Robbins was more unlucky than the blessed man who 
gave me credit for my false-faced emotion ; for, going 
home a little more upright and confident than ever, he 
hearci a. loud cackle of laughter from the steps of 
brcther Battle’s side-door, which was screened from 
the street by some shrubby lilacs, and Jim Beebe’s 
voice uplifted with, — 

‘‘I stuck one in every time, squire; and you see 
jrour tally and mine is as like as peas in a pod. Forty-’ 


170 


somebody’s netghboes. 


eight ‘Devils’ in them ’ere three discourses; ’bout as 
bad as the herd o’ swine. Haw, haw, haw! He 
does beat all for givin’ it to th’ Enemy, now don’t he? 
But I got my bet.” 

“ That’s so,” owned Squire Battle, re-echoing Jim’s 
irresistible chuckle. 

Parson Robbins walked on in a state of mind quite 
changed from the high content he had enjoyed before. 
He was, in fact, furiously angry, and, thinking he did 
well to be so, devoted himself to preparing in this week 
three new sermons entirely free from any allusions to 
the foul fiend, or his work and ways. It was a hard 
piece of writing to do this, — hard as to stand with 
level guns before the face of a hostile army, and not 
pull a trigger; but yet it taught the parson one lesson 
unconsciously. He learned more of the goodness of 
God in the course of those three sermons than in many 
a long year before, though the knowledge did not 
immediately bear fruit, for it fell among the thorns of 
kindled temper and wounded vanity. But they were 
good sermons, and fell on the ears of his people like 
dew on the mown grass, and showers that water the 
field. Sweet pale Margaret Robbins lifted up her face, 
delicate as the cup of a wood-anemone, toward the 
high pulpit, and wondered what fresh coal from the 
altar had touched her father’s lips ; and Deacon Flint, 
harder than his apt name, stirred uneasily in his square 
pew, and thought many of such sermons might meddle 
with his domestic discipline, and put new and revolu¬ 
tionary ideas into his wife’s head. But at the end of 
the evening sermon the parson destroyed the lovely 
edifice he had so carefully laid up through the day, and 
restored matters to their usual level by facing about 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


171 


squarely at unlucky Jim Beebe, who sat as usual in the 
gallery, in the face and eyes of the congregation, and 
»’emarking in a loud voice, “There, young man! I 
have preached three sermons to-day, and have not 
mentioned the name of your father once.’’ 

Confusion twice confounded fell upon Jim and Squire 
Battle ; and a light rustle of choked and stifled laughter 
ran through the church, while the parson in a sonorous 
voice gave out the hymn beginning, — 

“ Why do the wicked boast abroad ?” 

Under cover of this remarkable incident, the publish¬ 
ment of Cal and Polly went into obscurity ; and in due 
time they were married, and Pollythi was installed in 
the little red house. She came in as with a besom of 
destruction, fetching store of linen and blankets, fresh 
splint-bottomed chairs, a new clock, a set of blae-edged 
crockery, and sundry other plenishings. Granny Cul¬ 
ver’s rickety belongings were hustled into the second 
story, and she herself bundled out of her warm bed¬ 
room, opening out of the kitchen, into one of the two 
up stairs, which were under the roof, and, in this July 
weather, sweltering hot. But Polly announced at once 
that she “ wa’n’t a-goin’ trapesin’ up and down them 
stairs forevermore;” and granny, being in a feeble 
minority, crept up the sharp ascent, and before long 
ceased to come down, but lay there, lonely and drowsy, 
day alter day. Polly did not really neglect her. She 
liad proper food, and was kept painfully clean. A 
little tenderness would have reconciled the old lady to 
fewer scrubbings and less food; but Polly gave what 
she had to give. Can any of us do more ? Cal was 
good to her in his lazy way; but Cal was never so put 


172 


somebody’s neighbors. 


about in his Own house before. No peace was left him 
in those easy-going precincts wliere he had been used 
to lie round at his leisure ; for now the floor was white 
with abundant soaping and sanding in the kitchen, the 
sills polished with scrubbing, the hearth immaculate, 
the very jambs whitewashed, and a great corn-husk 
mat lay before every door, whereon he was obliged, at 
the point of the broom-handle, to rub his boots before 
he could enter ; white curtains adorned every window ; 
the walls glared with fresh whiteness ; the most elabo¬ 
rate quilt forbade him to nap on the bed, — to rest his 
head on those shining linen pillow-cases would have 
made it as uneasy as to wear a crown ; and the chintz 
cushions in rocker and arm-chair were beautiful for 
sight and situation, but thdr poppies and roses were 
never meant to sit down on. ! 

It is true that Cal had^ever before been regaled 
with such food as Pollythi prepared. Her bread was 
whiter than milk, light as cork, delicate as cake, she 
wrought it after a secret process that Bassett maids and 
matrons pined to discover, but never attained ; and the 
game Cal brought in was converted into savory stews 
and crisp broils that would have done credit to a French 
chef. But what atones for domestic peace? How 
pathetic is the declaration of Solomon ! — “ It is better 
to dwell in a corner of the house-top than with a brawl¬ 
ing woman in a wide house.” 

There is but one parallel to this misery, — a man with 
dyspepsia. And, if Solomon left him out in this speci¬ 
fication, it is because he was a man himself ; and there 
is a way made and provided for men or women to de¬ 
fend themselves against their own sex, which does not 
hold good against the other. 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 173 

If Cal Culver had taken into his house a brother 
«vhose days were spent in snapping and snarling, in 
sulking silently, or seolding mercilessly, he would forth¬ 
with have extended his good right arm, and knocked 
dyspepsia out of him summarily ; but against a woman, 
and that woman his wife, he was comparatively power¬ 
less, almost as powerless as the dj^speptic’s wife or 
children would be against his afflictive manners and 
customs. So Pollythi pursued her triumphant career ; 
and Cal inhabited the barn and the woods chiefly 
through the summer, and became almost a fixture by 
the stove of Squire Battle’s store in winter. Polly 
grew more and more furious over his defections and 
short-comings ; and, rather than consume with speech¬ 
less wrath, she spent her time, between the occupations 
of housekeeping, in pouring that wrath into poor old 
granny’s ears as she lay on her feather-bed in the loft. 
Granny was helpless ; for winter had now set in, and 
bound her hand and foot with “ rheumatiz.” She could 
not even creep up, and sit in her rocking-chair, which 
Cal had insisted should be carried up there ; but it was 
mighty convenient for Pollythi, who sat there by the 
hour, rocking and scolding and knitting, till granny 
learned to think the hiss of rushing snows, the crackle 
of sharp sleet, or the tireless drip of chilly rains, upon 
the roof so close to her head, a song of comfort in 
comparison with Polly’s long diatribes. And when Cal 
came home at night, or occasionally to dinner, the 
tongue-tempest raged frantically, all the more that he 
seemed neither to hear nor fear this wordy assault, but 
bore himself like 

“Feather-bed ’twixt castle-wall 
And heavy brunt of cannon-ball,”* 


174 


somebody’s neighbors. 


eating his dinner as placidly and deliberately as if Polly 
and he were Darby and Joan. 

He did feel one thing, though he diplomatically con¬ 
cealed it, and that was his mother’s discomfort; for 
the poor old woman feebly whimpered her woes to him 
wnenever they had a moment together, and he saw that 
her life was a burden to her because of this daughter 
of Heth. But Cal could not help it; and his lazy, sun¬ 
shiny nature shook off trouble as a duck flirts the roll¬ 
ing waters from her packed and glossy feathers. He 
said nothing to Polly, nor even let her know that he 
appreciated his mother’s sufferings: discretion was 
eminently the better part of valor here. 

The year rolled on into summer again, and again 
found Cal and his crony Ashing in latter May on Long 
Lake. The orchards were heaped with rosy bloom, the 
woods fresh and odorous with young leaves ; gold-and- 
crimson columbines danced on the rocky shores, and 
nodded to their vivid counterparts in the still wave 
below ; and the first wood-robin blew his fairy clarion, 
resonant as a silver bell, sweet as a flute, yet shrill as 
a violin, in the very highest boughs of the forest: but 
Cal and Jim, blind and deaf as two images of wood, 
neither saw nor heard the beauty and songs about 
them ; they were absorbed in discussing the rules and 
regulations of a hunting-club to which they both be¬ 
longed, and which gave prizes for certain achieve¬ 
ments. The subject had been introduced by the sight 
of a heifer calf, apparently pure Devon, grazing peace¬ 
fully in a near pasture. It was Cal’s calf, the captive 
of his bow and spear in one sense ; for he had won it 
as last year’s prize. 

“ Pretty critter, ain’t it? ” he said to Jim. 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


175 


“Well, yes, middlin*. I dono but what I should 
think ’twas all-fired harnsome ef I’d got it as easy as 
you did. Cal.” 

‘ ‘ Easy! I tell ye it took some huntin’ to git all 
them heads.” And Cal’s blue eyes twinkled with fun 
as he made this statement. 

“ Haw, haw, haw ! You be the beateree. Cal Cul, of 
any critter I ever see. ^ There ain’t another feller in 
Bassett would ha’ thought o’ fetchin’ in two hundred 
mouse-heads to the last minnit, and claimin’ on ’em 
for game, so’st they couldn’t help but give ye the 
prize.” 

“ Well, they was game, — dreadful lively game too. 
I ’arned the prize, ef ever a man did.” 

“ I say for’t. Cal, ef you had as much grit as you’ve 
got gumption, I bet you’d be put up for guv’nor, or 
hog-herd, or suthin’, afore ye die.” 

“ Mebbe I should, mebbe I should ; but ’tain’t wuth 
the trouble, Jim. I’m ’fiicted with a chronic overdid 
from my youth up’ard, as Parson Robbins might say. 
I don’t see no payin’ property in workin’ yourself to 
death afore your time.” 

“ It’s awful lucky you’ve got a real smart wife, now 
I tell ye.” 

“Well, there might be two ways o’ lookin’ at thax, 
now, Jim Beebe. There is sech a thing as bein’ too 
everlastin’ smart and spranxious for a feller’s com¬ 
fort.” 

“ That’s so,” briefly assented Jim. 

“Now, I don’t say but what Pollythi’s a sir art 
woman, — an orful smart woman ; but she’s got a kind 
of a mighty way with her, so to speak, a kinder pep¬ 
pery nater, that makes things lively as a bumble-bee’s 
nest in hayin’-time.” 


176 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“ She’s dreadful neat, ain’t she?” 

“ Neat! she’s cleaner’n creation arter the flood. 
There dursn’t so much as one small fly skip round 
where she is ; and as for skeeters — my land! she’d 
ketch ’em and soap their feet, if they durst to hum one 
time to our house. I b’lieve, ’twixt you and me and 
the post, she’s ’most washed mother away: there ain't 
but mighty little left of her.” 

“ Why, she used to be kinder fat when I see her.” 

“Fat! well, she’s ’bout as fat’s a hen’s forehead, 
now, I tell ye. And her floor’s sloshed over with a 
mop so frequent, I believe honest, she’s got the rheu- 
matiz past helpin’, or pokeberry rum.” 

“Do tell!” 

“ She has, sir. Priest Dobbins he come to see her 
a spell ago, and he praised up the looks o’ things 
amazin’. Polly she nussed him up with a mug o’ flip 
and a lot o’ ’lection-cake, till he was as pleasant as a 
young rooster. But thinks sez I, ‘ you’re nearer to 
the Devil, a-settin’ right there, parson, than ever you 
was afore.’ By jinks! I don’t want no wuss Devil 
round than a foreverlastin’ jawin’ woman, Jim Beebe, 
now I tell ye.” 

“ Thunder! ” ejaculated Jim, not knowing what else 
to say to this astonishing burst of confidence on Cal’s 
part. 

“Yes, sir: it’s thunder and lightnin’ too; and I 
dono how to stand it, nor how to git red on’t.” 

Jim had no advice to give. [In those days a married 
pair were helpless, however incompatible they might 
be: they had to jog along the highways and by-ways 
of life like an ill-mated pair of oxen, however the 
yoke galled them, or however much they wanted to 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


177 


gore each otherTT It was a relief to Cal to have freed 
his mind to Jim Beebe, whom he knew to be reticent 
of any real confidence; but it was only a temporary 
relief. He was as unhappy, or rather as uncomfort¬ 
able, as a person of his temperament could be; and 
Pollythi was more unhappy still. Before two years of 
her married life had gone by, she had learned thor¬ 
oughly to despise her husband: she knew him to be 
radically lazy and self-indulgent, —traits for which she 
had no mercy or patience. It did not occur to her that 
in her own way she equally indulged herself. This is 
a nice distinction often drawn by persons who do not 
seem able to see that self-indulgence can lie in yielding 
to evil temper and irritated nerves quite as surely, and 
far more painfully to others, than in giving way to an 
indolent and ease-loving nature. Pollythi even claimed 
to be a religious woman, or to have such intentions: 
she had assented to the “halfway’’ covenant of those 
times, which made her a sort of postulant for full 
membership at some future period, and she had an 
honest desire to be a good woman. But she was quite 
unaware how bitter and stinging her speech was to 
Calvary, how differently it sounded in .his ears and 
hers. It was the habit of her life to scold ; but it was 
an unpleasant novelty to him, and, for the sake of what 
little peace was left to his mother, he forbore confiict, 
but chose flight instead. Now, if Polly Culver ever had 
loved anybody on earth, it was her handsome^ worth¬ 
less husband ; and, while she despised his character, she 
raged with frantic jealousy at his neglect. Anomalous, 
perhaps; but women are all anomalies. She would 
have forgotten all his sins, had he condescended to 
coaxing and cai’essing; but she would have gone on 


178 


somebody’s neighboks. 


scolding just as usual. At the end of two years 
Granny Culver died, peacefully and joyfully. She was 
glad to go somewhere else, if her faith was not very 
vivid, or her hope clear. A sort of dim but helpful 
belief upheld her to the verge of the grave. Naturally 
dull of intellect, uneducated, wearing away her hard 
and simple life in the pursuit of daily bread, yet the 
relics of early teaching lingered with her, and she died 
with folded hands, saying “Our Father;” and the 
words at which she left off were, “ Thy will be done.” 

Calvary went after Parson Pobbins to attend the 
funeral. The parson himself answered that stout 
thump at the front-door. 

“ Say, parson, can you ’tend up to mother’s funeral 
to-morrer ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Is your mother dead. Calvary ? Why, why, why ! ’ ’ 

“Ef she wa’n’t, there wouldn’t be no need o’ a 
funeral,” muttered Calvary under his breath; for the 
parson was a little deaf. 

“Well, well! What was the matter? What was 
her complaint? What did she die of, eh? ” 

“Pollythi,” stoutly responded Cal. 

“Polypus? Dear, dear! Strange disorder. I 
pever heard of a case in these parts.” 

“ Pollythi, I said ! ” shouted the indignant son. 

“ Calvary Culver ! ” The parson’s indignation ren 
dered him speechless. 

“Well, she did anyhow; and it’s a wuss disease’n 
t’other polly, a heap. I’m like to die on’t myself 
afore long, ef somebody don’t doctor her for’t.” 

“Your frame of mind is carnal indeed,” began Par 
son Robbins, “if you can talk such talk about your 
lawful wife.” 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


179 


“Well, I shouldn’t say nothin’ about her ef she 
wa’n’t my wife,” answered the incorrigible Cal. “ But 
ef a man dono what his wife is, who doos? I tell ye, 
Pollythi’s the Devil and all.” 

“Hold your profane tongue, sir!” flamed the 
parson. 

“ ’Tain’t no sech. It don’t say nowheres in the 
Bible nothin’ about takin’ Satan’s name in vain, now. 
I’ll bet ye. Besides, I took it to good puppus, an’ 
I’ll say it agin for a copper. I’d a darn sight ruther 
the Old Boy was arter me than Poll, anyway.” 

“ Calvary Culver, I’ve a great mind to set the tithing- 
man after you for using profane and loose talk ; and I 
will surely, if you offend again. This is not to be 
borne.” 

“Well, it ain’t to the p’int, that’s a fact, parson. 
Let’s commence to the beginnin’ agin. Say, would you 
ruther hev the corpse fetched to the meetin’-house? 
and will you hev funeral services to-morrow, or a Thm’s- 
day?” 

“Thursday, in the Lord’s house. And I say unto 
you. Beware, Calvary Culver, lest you be taken at your 
word, and the Enemy do indeed come after you to 
enlist you in his service, which is death.” 

“ Amen I ” ejaculated Calvary, and strode off. But 
why did he, a few rods down the road, stop, slap his 
thigh as in congratulation, and stifle a laugh outwardly 
that nevertheless shook him all over? 

On Thursday the funeral took place in church. Par¬ 
son Robbins preached a sermon with seventeen heads, 
calculated to make the flesh creep on the bones of his 
audience, and with abundant mention of the Enemy 
therein, as one lying in wait for perishing sinners, — a 


180 


somebody’s neighboes. 


point he directed straight at the chief mourner on this 
occasion, who received it decorously, though he after¬ 
ward was heard to remark to Jim Beebe, that he did 
think it was “ everlastin’ mean to jaw at a feller like 
that when he can’t noway jaw back.” 

The choir also did their part at exalting the misery 
and despair of the occasion, by wailing out in the dis¬ 
cordant manner of country choirs, “Hear,” ‘‘ China,” 
and “Windham” to appropriate words; the whole 
ceremony, to an unbiassed observer, presenting rather 
the aspect of a heathen assemblage howling over the 
dead, than a Christian church celebrating the falling- 
asleep of a sister in the hope of a joyful resurrection. 
But, as this style of funeral service is still prevalent 
among us, we cannot cast any stones at Bassett, but 
must tm*n away, and follow Cal Culver — as far as we 
can. 

Home did not become any more homelike, or Polly 
any lovelier, to Calvary after his mother’s death, but 
rather more distasteful; and before long, exasperated 
by his wife’s constant vituperation, and unrestrained 
by any fear of troubling the poor soul who lay safe 
asleep in the graveyard, he turned upon the astonished 
Polly, and gave her a good shaking. 

This finished the last bit of kindly feeling in her 
heart. The “dynamic reasons of larger bones” did 
not appear logical to her: she raved and raged like a 
perfect fury, and retaliated by throwing the piggin of 
soft-soap at Calvary’s head, — a missile he would have 
found sufficiently uncomfortable, if Polly could have 
thrown it straight enough to hit him; but, as it was, 
it only broke the flax-wheel in its flight, and poured 
Its contents of unsavory jelly over the basket of fresh- 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


18 ^ 


iuDned clothes. Polly fell into hysterics; and Cal 
picked her up, deposited her on the bed, and strode 
off. 

“What’s the matter o’ you?” sh9uted Jim Beebe, 
who was going by, seated in an ox-cart, whistling, and 
balancing his long whip as the heavy red beasts maae 
deliberate progress along the road. 

“ Plenty,” curtly responded Cal. 

“ Hain’t seen the Enemy, hev ye? ” queried Jim. 

“ Wisht I had. I’d consider’ble ruther go to the 
Devil than stay to hum ’long o’ her,” pointing over his 
bhoulder with expressive thumb toward the house. 

“ Cal Culver! What ef Priest Robbins heerd ye? ” 

“Well, what ef he did? He talk about the Devil! 
He don’t know nothin’. Both his wives died pretty 
near right off; and that gal o’ his’n is ’most too good 
to live, folks tell. Folks ain’t qualified to preach 
about things, onless they know ’em so to be.” 

“ Well, there is suthin’ to that,” allowed Jim, urging 
on his slow team. “ Where you goin’ ? ” 

“ Over to the store,” gloomily answered Cal. “ I’m 
a-goin’ to hire out a spell this year; take it in jobs. 
Ef I could git a mite o’ cash, I’d go to York sure as 
you’re born, and git suthin’ to do there. Mebbe I’d git 
onto a whaler.” 

“ Why, hain’t you got cash enough? I thought slie 
had rents out o’ the housen in Har’ford.” 

“ Heavens-to-Betsy! You don’t think I ever see a 
copper o’ her cash, do ye? It’s trusted out to a bank 
in Har’ford quick as lightnin’. It don’t never peek at 
Bassett; and, ef it did, I shouldn’t have none of it.” 

“But I b’lieve, accordin’ to law, it’s all your’n, tc 
uev an’ to hold, ain’t it? ” 


182 


ROIVIEBODY’S NEIGHBORS. 


“’Tain’t accordin’ to Pollythi; and that’s more tci 
the p’int, a lot. I wouldn’t hev it nuther, — not to git it 
by law. She’d make it burn my fingers, and p’ison my 
pocket. No, sir: ain’t got no hankerin’ arter work, 
but I’d ruther hill corn than squabble for her money.” 

“ Well, well, I don’t say but I agree with ye so fur. 
But it doos seem cur’us, kinder, how she works it with 
ye. Say! Deacon Flint he wants help. He’s a-plantin’ 
the ten-acre medder this year; and he reckons to hire, 
his rheumatics is so dreadful bad.” 

‘‘I sha’n’t get puss-proud on his pay,” dryly re¬ 
marked Cal; “but mebbe I’d better take up with it, 
seein’ it’s three mile off.” 

“Haw, haw, haw!” roared Jim; and the oxen, 
roused by that familiar sound, turned placidly off tc 
the left. And while Jim was trailing them back into 
position with, “Gee, Buck! gee, I tell ye, Bright! git 
up! gee, can’t ye?” and sundry cracks of the whip, 
Calvary stalked off the other way, and at night an 
nounced to Pollythi that he had “got a job” at 
Deacon Flint’s. 

He worked here pretty steadily for a week or two, 
ploughing the great field for winter rye, and renewing 
the fence, which was old and feeble; being very little 
at home, and receiving Polly’s wordy fiights with con¬ 
temptuous silence. He took his dinner always to the 
field, — an abundant and wholesome provision, for Polly 
never stinted any one in their food, — and matters ap¬ 
peared to have settled down into an armed neutrality, 
when one noon-time a mighty knocking startled Parson 
Robbins from his sermon-writing; and he opened the 
door tc behold Calvary Culver, his fair hair disturbed 
as if it had been standing on end, his eyes big as sau 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


183 


cers, and drops of sweat thick over all his face, which 
was disturbed by a wild look of terror and dismay. 

“O Lord, parson ! I’ve been and gone and done it 
now! ” he exclaimed, as the parson’s square dark 
visage glared sternly upon him over the lower half of 
the door. 

“ Set a guard on your lips. Calvary Culver,” indig¬ 
nantly exclaimed the parson. 

“O L— Oh! Well, th’ occasion kinder needs 
cussin’. Well, I won’t: so there. But I do want 
to tell ye suthin’, parson. I’m under concern, so to 
speak: I want dealin’ with.” 

The parson’s face brightened. 

“Bless the Lord! Walk in, my friend; walk in! 
This is indeed to be rejoiced in.” 

“Idono,” said Cal ruefully: “I should say ’twas 
to be t’other thinged myself.” 

“Sit down there,” said the parson, when he had 
piloted him to the study, pointing to a splint-bottomed 
chair hard and straight enough to have served as a 
stool of repentance, — “sit there, and let us reason 
together. ’ ’ 

“ Well, fust and foremost I want to tell ye suthin’ ; 
then you kin reason on’t, ef you hanker to. I don’t. 
I’m nigh about skeered to death, parson. I swan to 
man I be ! ” 

‘ ‘ Cannot you tell your story without unseemly words, 
my friend? ” objected the parson. 

“ Well, I dono’s I can, and I dono as I can: fact is, 
I want suthin’ to h’ist me along, as it might be, seem- 
in’ly, and I’m used to them words you tell about. 
Lordy ! what’s words? They don’t mean nothin’ when 
j^ou’re used to ’em, no more’n a cat-bird’s scoldin’; 
come kinder nateral.” 


184 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“Well, well, go on!’^ ejaculated the parson, who 
really felt much more like swearing than Calvary ; for 
it was late in the week, and a happy train of thought 
in his sermon curtly interrupted. 

“Well, you see, I’m a-workin’ for Deacon Flint; ben 
a-ploughin’ and seedin’ down and harrerin’ that ’ere 
ten-acre medder o’ his’n. He don’t pay fust-rate, ye 
know : but for sartin private reasons, such as the man 
had that killed the goose, I wanted a job that wa’n’t 
nigh hum; so I took up with that. Well, I was har¬ 
rerin’ away this mornin’, ’most to the eend o’ the lot, 
and kinder speculatin’ whether or no I’d go to choppin’ 
to-morrer, or whether I’d go up on to the mounting, 
and snare a mess o’ pa’tridges.” 

“ Boast not thyself of to-morrow,” put in the parson 
solemnly. 

“I wa’n’t, as I knows of; but I kinder hankered 
arter them birds: they’ve ben a-fattin’ up on the 
deacon’s buckwheat this four weeks back, and they’ll 
be plump as punkins. Well, that ain’t here nor there. 
But, as I was sayin’, I got nigh about to the road-eend 
o’ the lot, and I see somebody a-comin’ full tilt down 
the road. Thinks me, that’s Jim Beebe : so I let the 
critters stop. They’d allers ruther stop, ye know, than 
go ’long, oxen would: they’re s’^wer’n molasses.” 

The parson wiped his damp f b ce. To a man of his 
temper this prolixity was maudening. “Well, well, 
well,_never mind the team. Go on. Calvary.” 

“ Why, I was a-goin’ on. Well, you see, I kinder 
leaned up agin the fence to wait for him ; but, when he 
come along, I see ’twa’n’t nobody I ever see afore, nor 
nobody’t looked like anybody I ever see afore. ’Twas 
a dreadful dark-complected man, reel spry appearin’ 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


185 


— one that looked as though his name was Smart, now 
I tell ye. My, how them eyes o’ his’n did snap! — 
jest like Pollythi’s when she throwed the piggin at my 
head, only he didn’t act noways mad, and I didn’t 
think nothin’ strange o’ his eyes till I come to rec’lect 
them arter he’d gone. You know, parson, folks don’t 
allers sense things right off: they sorter call ’em to 
mind, so to speak, as it might be, arter they’ve gone 
by. Well, he come along and spoke reel civil; sez, 
‘ How be ye? ’ or suthin’: ’tain’t no great matter what 
he did say; I guess ’twas ’bout the weather. But he 
went on fur to say, ‘ Got a job, hain’t ye? ’ — ‘ Well,’ 
sez I, ‘ I hev and I hain’t. I’ve got through here: 
there’s quite a spell o’ choppin’ in his wood-lot I 
could hev, I s’pose, ef I hankered to.’ — ‘Well,’ sez 
he, ‘ I want a feller of ’bout your heft to work for me 
a spell. I’ll give good wages.’ So I sez, ‘What’il 
ye give?’ for I wa’n’t gittin’ but three-an’-sixpeuce 
by the day, boardin’ myself. Ye know Deacon Flint’s 
a dreadful near man : he dursn’t look at a dollar out¬ 
side his pocket, it scares him so. So I reckoned here 
was a chance of a betterment; and ef he didn’t up and 
offer me a dollar right off, and found ! ” 

“ Filthy lucre,” groaned the parson. 

“ No, he wa’n’t filthy a mite : he was dressed up for 
’lection, I tell ye, ef he was lookin’ ; but I snapped 
him up jest as a pickerel does a shiner. Sez I, ‘ I’m 
your feller.’ — ‘ Well,’ sez he, ‘ you might go ’long an’ 
hire out to somebody’t offered ye more : let’s hev it iu 
writin’. I b’lieve in contracks.’ — ‘ Hev it your own 
way,’ sez I: ‘ fetch on your contrack.’ So he whipped 
a little book out o’ his pocket, an’ sez he, ‘ I keep my 
’greements writ out in here. I’m a-hiriu’ out a lot 


186 


somebody’s neighboks. 


o’ men for this here coalin’ job.’ I dono’s I men« 
tioned, parson, he told me, fust go off, ’twas a coalin’ 
job. ‘ So now,’ sez he, ‘ write your name down here.’ 
— ‘ Jeerus’lem! ’ sez I, ‘I don’t keep pen and ink in 
my breeches-pocket; do you ? ’ He larfed a little, and 
then he sez, ‘ Well, prick your finger : there’s a crow’s 
feather ; I’ll make a pen for ye.’ Sure enough he did, 
and I 'jest scratched a place on my arm till I fetched a 
leetle mite o’ blood, and writ my name down in the 
book with that crow-quill as sure as you’re a livin’ 
critter.” 

“ Singular,” muttered the parson. 

‘‘ Sing’lar ! I guess it was. Fust I knew he wa’n’t 
there. I’d dropped my whip-stock while I was writin’ ; 
and, when I’d writ, sez I, ‘ Where do ye live ? ’ — ‘ Well, 
quite a ways off, down by the Kingdom,’ sez he ; ‘ but 
I’ll come and fetch ye a Friday come two weeks, to-day 
bein’ Saturday.’ So then I bent down to git my whip- 
stoek ; and, as sure as you’re born, when I straightened 
up, that black feller wa’n’t there; but there was the 
all-firedest stink! Thunder! ef you’d had a bonfire 
o’ roll brimstone, ’twouldn’t ha’ ben no wuss. That 
struck me all of a heap. I know’d what that meant 
quieker’n punk. Sartin as you live, I’d gin a contrack 
to the Enemy, and he’ll be arter me immediate. Now, 
what be I a-goin’ to do, parson? ” 

Parson Kobbins paeed up and down his small study, 
his eye kindled, and his head ereet, like one who snuffs 
Uie battle afar off, muttering to himself, half aloud 
* ‘ He goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he 
may devour; but resist him, yea, resist the Devil, and 
he shall fiee from thee. This kind goeth not out save 
by prayer and fasting.—Calvary Culver,” turning to 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


18T 


the victim, who sat watching him with a peculiar look 
of intelligence and craft in his half-shut eye, — Calvary 
Culver, this is an awful warning to you. Repent, and 
flee from all your evil doings. You have lived a kind 
of a shiftless life, not profitable to God or man, nor 
according to your chief end; and now Satan hath 
desired to have thee. But the Adversary shall be put 
to flight. I will appoint a day of fasting and prayer 
in the church. It shall be the day of your master’s 
arrival to fetch you; but by the help of the Lord we 
will slay a thousand, yea, we will put ten thousand to 
flight.” 

‘‘Well now, parson, I didn’t expect to give ye no 
sech trouble,” said Cal, looking a little uneasy. “I 
thought I’d oughter tell ye, so’st ef I was took away 
sudden, you might kinder suspect whereabouts I was 
and I didn’t know but what you could give me suthin’, 
some kind of a word, ye know, like them long ones in 
the fust part o’ the Bible, to scare him off, ef he reelly 
was the Old Boy.” 

“I will have the day of prayer appointed very 
shortly,” went on the parson, giving little heed to Cal’s 
remonstrances or suggestiohs. “ To-morrow is already 
occupied with another subject: I am advised to pray 
for rain.” 

“Well, ’tis everlastin’ dry, that’s a fact. I dono’s 
that winter wheat ever will come up anyhow,” assented 
Calvary. 

“Besides, I think it better to appoint the day the 
Evil One hath himself set; for I think he will scarcely 
venture into the house of the Lord to seize his prey.” 

And the parson smiled a grim smile, as who should 
Bay, “ I have outgeneraled the enemy.” 


188 


somebody’s neighbobs. 


So Calvary left him, and went his way, finished his 
day’s work, and told Pollythi the whole story at the 
tea-table. 

At first that strong-minded woman was disinclined 
to accept the tale ; but education and superstition w^re 
too much for her: she ended by believing it all, anu 
prepared for church in the morning with a sense of 
personal importance, for heretofore she had not con¬ 
sidered her husband of enough consequence for ever 
the Devil to come after him. 

It was a splendid October day. The abundant for- 
;sts burned in the soft red sunshine like crusted gems 
ind dead gold; the air was sweet and sad with odors 
)f dying foliage and fading fiowers. A rich silence 
>rooded over the hills and fields of Bassett, broken 
\miy by the first sounding of the bell for service, which 
aroused here and there, in answer to its cummons, 
clouds of dust from the ash-dry roads, stirred by the 
heavy wagons and deliberate horses of the more dis¬ 
tant farmers. 

The day was so quiet, so serene, the blue heaven and 
the gorgeous misty hills so lovely in their calm repose, 
that ]3assett might have passed for a bit of paradise. 
But, to the astonishment of everybody. Parson Robbins 
trotted across the green to church, carrying a great 
green umbrella. 

“Why, parson,” asked Squire Battle, who was 
“ standing around ” on the meeting-house steps, 
“ain’t ye kind of prematoor? There ain’t the first 
sign o’ rain.” 

^ ‘ I shall fetch her! I shall fetch her! ’ ’ sharply 
answered the parson, as if his neighbor had been 
doubting Thomas; and, to be sure, before the second 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


189 


Bervict 'WHS well begun, the mists gathered depth and 
then blackness ; light winds sighed through the forest, 
and died out in ominous quiet; thunder growled afar 
off, drew nearer and nearer; and then the heavens 
opened suddenly, dashing their stores of rain upon the 
thirsty earthy and drowning the parson’s trimnphant 
hurst of praise and thanksgiving in the clatter it made 
on the old church-roof. The people were impressed, 
as well they might be ; and when the parson went on to 
appoint a day of fasting and prayer, the next Friday 
week, for a brother in distress and danger, a feeling of 
awe and interest stole through the congregation; and 
after service was over many a question was asked, and 
answer suggested. But the parson spoke to nobody: 
he went home in silence. He had never felt nearer to 
God, or more sure of victory over Satan, than now. 

Cal and Jim Beebe went home together through the 
rain, which had quieted down now to a cold drizzle. 
Some neighbors had taken Pollythi into their wagon. 

“Parson’s a hero at prayer, ain’t he?” suggested 
Jim. 

“Well, he ain’t nothin’ else.” 

“ But who d’you suppose the feller is in sech trouble 
they’ve got to hev a meetin’ about him? ” 

Cax gave him an expressive punch with his elbow. 
“ Lawful sakes ! it’s me, Jim.” 

“ Sho! ” Jim exclaimed, standing still, and facing 
round at Calvary with wide eyes and open mouth. 

“ ’Tis, I tell ye. Now shet up that mouth o’ your’n, 
and come along, and I’ll tell ye the hull on’t.” 

So he poured his tale into Jim’s willing ear, whether 
with any additions or emendations, history has not 
recorded: if there were, the reader’s imagination must 


190 


somebody’s neighbors. 


supply them. It is only sure that Jim went home ^vith 
an expression of mixed amusement and astonishment 
on his face, that did not do credit to the solemnity of 
the story. 

At last the eventful Friday arrived. Parson Fob- 
bins, after much pondering, had marshalled and ordered 
his forces, and planned his battle-array. Calvary was 
ushered into the gallery of the meeting-house, and 
placed in the front-seat. He had on his Sunday suit: 
his hair was laid as flat as those rebellious curls could be 
ny the aid of a tallow candle assiduously applied ; and 
his handsome face was shining with yellow soap, and 
water; his boots had a portentous creak to them; 
and his blue eyes were empty of all expression, as he 
sat there, his great red hands clasping a still redder 
bandanna handkerchief, and he himself supported by 
the proud consciousness that he was the object of all 
this bustle and attention. At the head of the stairs 
leading into the gallery, Simeon Tucker, the black¬ 
smith, holding a mighty stick, stood on guard, lest the 
Old Boy should take on himself to come in person, and 
nab Cal Culver before meeting was over; and at the 
foot of the stairs another muscular brother, with 
another stick, looked both ways with his cross-eyes, as 
if he kept double watch and ward. Jim Beebe, escort¬ 
ing Cal to the door, as became a true comrade, sug¬ 
gested the idea to him that the parson had picked out 
Josiah on this very account, and Calvary found it hard 
to repress an indecorous chuckle. 

But, once in the church, chuckling was at an end. 
The parson read long selections from the Bible ; all 
the niinatory Psalms, to begin with, and then ever 5 
verse he could find under the heads relating to Satan in 


CAL CULVER AND THE DEVIL. 


19\ 


the Concordance ; then certain awful hymns, minor in 
key and minor in thought, were wailed and groaned 
out by the congregation ; then the parson praj^ed, and 
Deacon Flint prayed, till the very gates of heaven 
seemed to be stormed. Then there was more reading, 
followed by a short discourse of twelve heads only, in 
which the parson gave a full account of “ the young 
man’s” experience, and a historic and biographic 
account of the Devil, going back to Eden. During the 
tirst part of the discourse Cal sat on thorns. He was 
not overly modest or shy, but to be the centre of all 
those eyes was abashing even to him ; and, moreover, 
he was much bored with the whole matter. The seat 
was hard, the day was warm, as late October days 
sometimes are: he was hungry, and thirsty too; for 
though he had tied up a loaf of rye bread and several 
slices of cheese in a handkerchief that morning, and 
filled a flat bottle with cider, he did not fetch them to 
church. 

After the sermon, praying began again. Every 
brother present “ desired to jine ” in the exercise, and 
the sun was ready to set before these zealous members 
gave out. Flesh and blood could not bear it longer; 
and at last Parson Robbins wound up the meeting with 
a pointed but brief exhortation to Cal, and a benedic¬ 
tion. Then the two stalwart men, clubs and all, 
escorted Calvary to his own house, lest some outlying 
fiend should snap him up; while Pollythi lingered a 
little to talk it all over with Deacon Flint’s wife. 

The spiritual constables brought him safely to the 
red house, and declared afterward that he seemed 
much solemnized by the way, and thanked them kindly 
for their good offices. He shut the door upon them 


192 


somebody’s neighbors. 


with a composed countenance; but from that day to 
this Calvary Culver was never again seen in Bassett. 

Many were the conjectures as to his fate; though 
most people believed, with Parson Robbins, that the 
Devil was as good as jiis word, and had taken him off, 
body and soul, as well as his new overalls, which were 
missing. Pollythi mourned him decorously; but in a 
couple of years married again, in*spite of Jim Beebe’s 
remonstrances, and his wild idea that Cal might turn 
up yet. But he never did; and to this day Bassett 
people tell the shuddering tale of Cal Culver and th€ 
Devil. 


AMANDAR. 


“ What’s in a name ? ” 

“’Tain’t no use, Keery; you needn’t take me to 
do no more. I shall hev that young un called accordin’ 
to the counsel of my own will, as Cat’chism says. If 
a man hain’t got a right to put a name to his own 
child, I don’ know who hes.” 

“Well, well, talk, do talk, Bezy Hills. Who said 
you shouldn’t? I jest kinder throwed in an idee, as 
ye may say. I think Scripter names are seemly for 
deacons’ folks; an’, ef you don’t want no Scripter 
names round, why, I can’t help it. Folks will be 
folksy, I s’pose, an’ mother she always said ’twas rule 
or ruin with Bezy when you wa’n’t more’n knee-high 
to a grasshopper; an’ what’s bred in the bone’ll come 
out in the flesh, I’ve always heered, an’ ” — 

The monologue was cur short here by the slam of 
the kitchen-door, as Bezaleel Hills fled into the shed 
from the scourge of tongues. 

Widow Walker was his elder sister, a weakly,-buzz* 
ing, fluent, but not unprincipled woman. She had a 
long nose, a fallen-in and yet wide mouth, a distinct 
chin, and a pair of weak gray eyes with red lids, all 
overshadowed by a severe front of false chestnut hair 
set in stiff puffs, making her face look like those trian¬ 
gular heads which the schoolboy’s pencil bestows upoc 

193 


194 


somebody’s neighbors. 


ti cat when he solaces the dull hours of his education, 
by means of a slate meant for far other purposes. 

Bezaleel had lost his wife six months ago, exchan¬ 
ging her for the fat baby now lying in his sister’s lap 
before the fire. He was a silent man in regard to his 
affections, though voluble enough as to his will and 
opinions. Sister Kerenhappuch had not the least idea 
how his soul was bound up in the delicate, shy creature 
who had been his wife only five years, or how he had 
labored to give her such rude comforts as a country 
village could afford. It had been the one joy of his 
life to see the dark, soft eyes shine when he entered 
the door, and his solitary reward to know, that, even 
in the delirium of death, his voice could quiet her, and 
her last conscious word was ‘ ‘ Dear ! ’ ’ 

When he banged the door to-day, Keery did not 
know that his cold eyes were dim with tears, thinking 
of Amanda and his own solitude. She gave a sigh of 
obtrusive length and volume, as who should say, “ Such 
is life, and, slowly squeaking to and fro in the old 
rocker, began to sing to the baby, who threatened to 
awake when the door slammed, that excellent but 
unpleasant old hymn, — 

“ Broad is tke road that leads to death,” 

to the equally unpleasant, if not as excellent, tune of 
“ Windham.” 

As the long-drawn, doleful whine of the cadences 
kept tune to the slow squeak of the rocker, the baby, 
like a child of sense, objected, and not only woke, but 
set up a scream so lively and so sharp, that the waii 
of his aunt’s voice hushed before the fresh life of this 
infantine chorus. She stopped singing, reversed her 


AMANDAE. 


195 


charge across her knee, gave him two smart resound¬ 
ing slaps, and, tucking him vigorously under one arm, 
proceeded to warm his supper in the flat silver porrin¬ 
ger that was an heirloom of unknown antiquity, and 
BO appease his temper. 

A week after, having relegated him to the care of a 
poor neighbor (paid for the office with a peck of tur¬ 
nips) , she betook herself to sewing-society, a big silk 
bag on her left arm, a calash on her head, and her 
Sunday gown of black bombazine adorned by a vast 
tamboured muslin collar, while her chestnut front looked 
sterner than ever surmounted by a structure of black 
lace and hard dark purple satin ribbons. 

Five old women about a quilt! Can the pen of one 
give a tithe of their conversation record? Let us 
attempt but a part of it. Mrs. Green began the tour¬ 
nament. 

“ I hain’t seen ye a month o’ Sundays, Miss Walk¬ 
er : where do ye keep yerself ? ” ^ 

“Why, I’ve ben to hum. ’Taint real handy to 
take to baby-tendin’ when ye git along in years a 
spell; but there don’t seem to be nobody else to take 
care of Bezy’s babe but me. Bezy’s as pernickity as 
a woman about the child: he won’t lemme give it a 
speck of nothin’ but red cow’s millv; an’ he’s nigh 
about seven months old, an’ he’d oughter set in lap 
♦o the table, an’ take a taste o’ vittles along with us. 
My land! my children used to set to an’ grab things 
IIS quick as ever I fetched ’em where they could. 
Little Jemimy was the greatest hand for b’iled cabbage 
ve ever did see ; an’ pork ! — how that child would holler 
for fried pork I There wa’n’t no peace to the wicked 
\ill she got it. She’d ha’ ben a splendid child ef she’d 


196 


somebody’s neighbors. 


lived. But the summer complaint was dreadful preva* 
lent that year; an’ it took her off in the wink of an 
eye, as ye may say: allers doos the healthy children. 
Then my Samwell, why, he was the greatest hand for 
pickles that ever was: he’d git a hunk o’ fried steak 
into one leetle hand, an’ a pickle into t’other, an’ he 
would crow an’ squeal. Cuttin’ of his stomach-teeth 
was the end o’ him: got ’em too early; was took with 
convulsions, an’ died right off. An’ the twins: well, 
they favored beans, —baked beans an’ minute-puddin’. 
They was eighteen months old when they died, an’ they 
eet toast an’ cider like good fellers only the day they 
was took sick. We’d hed buckwheats an’ tree molasses 
for breakfast that day; an’ I expect they’d eet so 
much sweet, it kinder made ’em squeamy, so’t the 
hard cider jest hed the right tang. Poor little cre- 
turs ! Mabbe ’twas the bilious colic a-comin’ on made 
’em dry: anyway they was awful sick with ’t, an’ they 
died a Sunday week, for they was took of a Sunday, 
an’ ” — 

Miss Polly Paine, a short, plump old maid, gently 
interrupted here: she thought widow Walker had occu¬ 
pied the floor long enough. 

“But say, what do ye give it red cow’s milk for? 
I never knowed there was any great o’ virtoo in red 
cows.” 

“ Sakes alive!” Here Semanthy House, Deacon 
House’s wife, took up the thread of conversation. “ I 
want to know ef ye didn’t? Why, red’s the power- 
fulest thing! You jest put a red flannel round your 
throat, an’ it won’t never be sore; an’ a red string in 
your ears’ll keep off fever, everybody knows. But 
then I don’t hold to fetchin’ up a child on milk alto- 


AMANDAR. 


197 


gether: they won’t never make old bones that way. 
I b’lieve in hearty vittles for everybody. Pie’s real 
hearty, ef ye make it good, an’ so’s cheese, when ye 
can’t git butcher’s meat. I b’lieve I could stan’ it the 
year round on pie an’ cheese an’ baked beans.” 

“Well, ye see,” pottered on Mrs. Walker, who 
seized a chance to begin again, “Bezy he won’t hear 
to no reason: he claims he knows more about fetchin’ 
up children than I do, spite of my hevin’ hed four on 
’em. He speaks about their all dyin’ off, an’ says he 
wants his’n to live, — a-flyin’ in the face of Providence, 
as ye may say; for we all know folks die by the dis¬ 
pensations of Providence, an’ mortal man can’t say, 
‘ Why do ye so ? ’ to the Lord. But I don’t know but 
what brother Bezy thinks he can. He sets dreadful 
loose to religion, ’specially doctrines an’ sech; says 
he wishes ’t Parson Pine wouldn’t say sech a lot about 
’lection, an’ hell, an’ decrees, an’ more about mercy 
an’ lovin’-kindness. Land! I want to know how 
you’re goin’ to fetch hardened old sinners like some 
ye could mention, ef ye was a-min’ to — an’ I guess we 
all know who they be without namin’ of ’em — inter 
the kingdom, ef ye couldn’t scare ’em out of their 
seven senses a-shakin’ of ’em over the pit, as ye may 
say. They don’t mind nothin’ but a real scare, an’ 
they don’t mind that no great. I feel to wonder real 
nften why sech folks is spared to ” — 

Polly Paine broke in again. She knew by experi¬ 
ence that widow AYalker would talk interminably if 
they waited for her easy tongue to stop of itself. 

“Say, what be you a-goin’ to call that child? I 
hain’t hcerd it spoke of save an’ except ‘ baby,’ sence 
ever ’twas born. I s’pose it’s got to hev some handle 
to’t, ha’n’t it? ” 


108 


somebody’s keighboes. 


“Well, now, there!” said Kerenhappuch, heaving 
a long and quavering sigh — “there’s Bezy agin! 
He’s most too cur’us to live. I wanted he should give 
the child a real good Scripter name, sech as mine an’ 
his’n is. It seems as though it give a child a kind of 
a pious start in this world to call it out o’ Scripter. 
But he’s jest as sot! I don’ know’s you know ’twas 
BO, but so it was : he made a reg’lar idle out of ’Mandy. 
He a-most said his prayers to her, I do b’lieve. She 
was a good enough gal, for’t I know; but he took on 
real foolish about her. The washing was did for her; 
an’ he didn’t keep but two cows, because he wouldn’t 
let her be overdid.” 

“Dew tell!” “Well, I never!” “That doos 
beat all! ” “ Sakes alive ! ” echoed round the quilt, 

as the old ladies glared over their spectacles, and 
suspended their needles, in the great shock of learning 
that a man could consider his wife’s comfort before 
the fulness of his pocket. But they did not stop the 
flow of Keery’s mild, incessant gabble. She went 
right on: — 

“Well, she wa’n’t real strong, kinder weakly from 
the fust; an’, when she up an’ died, seemed as though 
Bezy couldn’t stand it no way in the mortal world. 
He was cut down dreadful: the consolations of religion 
wa’n’t of no account to him. He behaved around a 
sight worse’n Job in the Bible did. Why, I tell ye I 
was skeert for a spell; an’ then I up and I took him 
to do, I tell ye. I says, says I, ‘ Bezaleel Hills,’ says 
I, ‘ be ye a perfesser, or not? I don’t see how ye can 
fly inter the face o’ Providence this way. Don’t ye 
know ye made a idle of ’Mandy ? ’ says I, ‘ so the I^ord 
he took her away from ye. Ye thought a heap too 


AMANDA R. 


■J9i» 


much of her.’ — ‘ Git out! ’ says he, a-snappin’ at mu 
so quick I screeched a little screech; an’ he banged 
the door, an’ you nor I nor nobody knows where under 
the canopy he went to ; but he never come in till dark 
night, an’ his eyes was as red as a rabbit’s, an’ there 
was hay-seed onto his head. I mistrust he’d ben into 
the mow a-cryin’, but ” — 

Miss Polly, who saw she must fetch the widow back 
to her subject-matter of discourse, interposed again : — 
“ Well, he can’t call the boy after her, seein’ ’tain’t 
a girl; an’ her t’other name was Smith. I guess he 
wouldn’t never yoke Smith an’ Hills up together.” 

A faint smile relaxed the severe wrinkles of Kecry’a 
sallow forehead. “ I don’t suppose ye ever would 
guess, nor nobody else neither ; but he doos act like all 
possessed about it. He says — and, when he doos sa}" 
a tiling, he sticks to’t like shoemaker’s wax — that he’s 
a-goin’ to call that poor babe Amandar.” 

A chorus of exclamations again went round the 
quilt. Mrs. Green, in the very act of snapping the 
chalked twine that marked the quilters’ pattern, lifted 
her head, and forgot to let go of the string. 

“For mercy’s sakes what do you mean?” she said 
sharply. “ Call a boy-babe Amandy ? ” 

“No, it ain’t Amandy; but it’s as nigh to’t as ye 
can turn your tongue an’ not say it, an’ ” — 

“ What upon tne face of the yerth do ye let him do 
it for? ” severely inquired Mrs. Green. 

Keery’s eyes opened as far as the secretive narrow 
lids would allow. 

‘ ‘ Let him ? Hear that! I want to know ef ye 
think any mortal bein’ can stop Bezy Hills from doin’ 
what he’s got a mind to? ” 


200 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“Or any other man,” purred Miss Polly, who had 
an elderly maiden’s contempt for the sex. 

“ They ain’t all jest alike,” dryly remarked Mrs. 
Green. 

A look of intelligence passed round the table. It 
was well known in Hampton that Mrs. Green was the 
head of the family; and, instead of rejoicing in her 
supremacy as a tribute to her abused sex and a proph¬ 
ecy of hope, the women who should have sympathized 
sniffed at her. Such is human nature. 

“ But what will folks say when the child is presented 
for baptism? ” asked the deacon’s wife. 

“There ’tis agin,” wailed Keery. “Bezy don’t 
b’lieve in infant-baptism. He says the’ ain’t no sech 
thing told about in the Bible, an’ he don’t b’lieve ’twas 
ever meant for folks to be baptized till they was con¬ 
verted ; an’ he won’t never have it done to the babe 
no way, for he’s got a conscience about it. An’ I’ve 
talked an’ talked an’ talked to him ; an’ I might jest as 
well ha’ talked to the side o’ White Mounting, for ” — 

“I’ll send the deacon over to deal with him,” said 
Mrs. House, to whom the deacon was the end of the 
law ; for which the rest of her sisters secretly sniffed at 
her. The happy medium of a bland indifference was 
“ the thing ” as to marital relations in Hampton. 

“ H’m! ” said Miss Polly. “ I don’t b’lieve talk’ll 
turn him. I’ve seen quite a few men-foll^s, bein’ as 1 
go out nursin’ by spells ; an’ I’ve seen pretty clear that 
it takes science to manage of ’em. The mortal! I’ve 
seen a feller go boastin’ around that he would be mas¬ 
ter in his own house, he would be minded, ov things 
would crack; an’, come to find out, he was jest twisted 
round his wife’s finger, lilie a hanlv o’ darnin’-cotton, 



AMANDAR. 


201 


1.11 the time he was bustin’ with boastin’. They’re 
q leer creturs. Like enough, now, if you let Bezaleel 
alone, an’ keep a-peggin’ at the boy how’t he’s got a 
girl’s name tacked onto him, why, he’ll git sick on’t 
himself when he comes to years, an’ drop it.” 

“Well, I declare for’t! I never thought o’ that,” 
responded the astonished widow ; and, just then being 
called to help roll the quilt, she had no chance to say 
any more on the matter; for the minister’s wife came 
in, and the state of religion in the village became the 
topic of conversation in deference to her official posi¬ 
tion. 

But the stubborn fact remained, that Bezy Hills 
would call his boy Amandar, — a name he had, indeed, 
invented, after much study, and a dull sort of sense 
that few, if any, feminine names ended in “r,” and 
several masculine ones had that termination. Possibly 
Keery might have taken the counsel of the serpent 
from Polly Paine, but she did not live to try the force 
of iteration. Before Amandar was five years old, his 
aunt died, and her place in the family was taken by a 
fat and kindly woman, whose husband had run away 
and left her, in a drunken fit, and never been heard of 
since. Indeed, Sally Swett took no pains to discover 
him. She did not wish to marry again ; and in taking 
ca -e of Bezaleel’s house, and bringing up little ’Maudy, 
she was nappy as she never had been during her mai- 
ried life, the only skeleton in her closet being the fear 
that Apollos might yet appear on the stage, and deprive 
her of a home. 

’Mandy grew up, as most country children grow, 
sunburned, ragged, dirty, but by no means neglected; 
for the motherly heart of “Aunt Sally,” never com 


202 


somebody’s neighbors. 


forted with offspring of her own, went out to the 
motherless boy, for whom she delighted to make and 
mend, to concoct pies, turnovers, gingerbread, and 
fantastic doughnuts. She let him make endless work 
for her in the kitchen, with his pans of molasses candy, 
kettles of sirup to sugar off, pots of evil-smelling 
ointment for his little boots, and roastings of chestnuts 
that would explode, and fly in savory fragments all over 
the kitchen-floor. But, for all Sally’s indulgence, she 
did not wean Amandar from his father: no temptation 
of food or fun could keep him from the lonely man’s 
side. Together they went to salt the sheep, to mend 
the rail fences, to sow rye, or plant corn and potatoes ; 
and it was Bezy’s great solace to tell “ ’Mandy,” as 
he got to call his boy, all about his dead mother. The 
squirrel-cups, lifting soft gray buds and blooms of 
pink and purple from the dead leaves, reminded him 
how glad she always was to And them, and how her 
eyes sparkled when he brought them in flrst: he 
planted them all about her low grave on the hillside, 
and ’Mandy helped him. Not a thing was done about 
the farm without some reference to the past. 

“ Yer ma liked them peach-blow potaters first best: 
I guess we’ll set ’em agin this year.” Or, “Mother 
she took to rye bread amazin’, ef ’twas new rye: we’ll 
sow some onto that hill lot.” 

Great white-rose bushes were trained each year 
higher and higher by the door, because the dear dead 
wife had loved them; and, by the time ’Mandy was 
fifteen, it seemed to him that the whole farm was linked 
to such tender associations of his unknown mother, 
and her memory made so living to him by the iterations 
of his father’s love and loss, that it would scarf^y 


AMANDAR. 


203 


liave startled him to see the delicate face waiting at 
the window, or hear the young fresh voice call from 
his door. 

Perhaps he loved her all the more from the fact that 
he had borne her name at the expense of much tribula¬ 
tion ; for, from the moment he began to attend the 
district school, that name had been the scorn and jest 
of all the other boys. Day after day he came home, 
his lips set with indignation, and his eyes red with 
tears; but never could his father get a word of com¬ 
plaint out of him, except, ‘‘ Them boys plague me.” 

The child, young as he was, felt that his father 
would be even more hurt than he to find this dear 
memorial name had become only occasion of anger and 
shame to the son who bore it. 

But Sally was a woman; and, finding it in vain to 
question or coax ’Mandy, her curiosity was fired at 
once, and, by various feminine arts and stratagems, 
she succeeded in discovering the secret from some of 
his playfellows ; and one night, when ’Mandy was safe 
asleep up stairs, and his father toasting his feet by the 
kitchen-fire, preparatory to his own retirement, she 
laid down her knitting, and blandly plunged into the 
middle of things at once. 

“ I’ve got to the bottom of ’Mandy’s red eyes now, 
I tell ye. Square Hills. I set a sight by that youngster ; 
an' it’s took me aback to hev him come home every 
mortal day a-lookin’ mad, and sorry too. It’s them 
boys to the school. I say for’t, I don’t want to fault 
Providence; but I do wish the Lord hed kinder con¬ 
trived some way to carry on the world ’thout boys. 
They’re the most trouble to the least puppus of any 
wiling that ever was created, except, mabbe, Dutchmen 


204 


somebody’s NE1GHP.OKS. 


an’ muskeeters; but, seein’ they he here, the matter in 
hand ’pears to be to do a body’s darn’dest to sarcum- 
vent ’em, as you may say. But I’m beat ef I know 
what to do about these here boys. They’ve got hold 
o’ ’Mandy’s name, it ’pears,—I guess ’twas writ into 
bis speller, — an’ they’re a-plaguin’ of him to pieces; 
callin’ of him ‘Miss Hills,’ an’ ‘lovely ’Manda,’ an’ 
a-askin’ of him ef he’s a-makin’ a quilt aginst his wed- 
din’, an’ all sorts o’ talk like that, an’ wuss, if wuss 
can be. The little feller can’t thrash ’em, he’s the 
smallest of the hull lot; an’ I’ve figgered on’t all day, 
but I can’t do nothin’ as I know of: so I thought I’d 
tell you about it, for I vum I’m to my wits’ ends.” 

A look of keen pain flitted across Bezy Hills’s face 
as Sally prattled on. He had not thought of this con¬ 
tingency. He was a slow-minded man, possessed all 
these years by one dominant idea, and every thing else 
fell into the background. His daily duties had been 
done because they must be: his sole enjoyment had 
been thinking of his wife, and talking about her to his 
boy. He had given him her name, as nearly as he 
could, in order to make her near to the child who had 
never seen her ; and the appellation was sacred to him. 
He had never thought it could be made the jest and 
weapon of rough boys, or a torment, instead of a pride, 
to ’Mandy. 

Perhaps if Amanda had lived, become the mother 
of other children, grown old and sad with hard wort, 
and the hard life of a farmer’s wife, this devotion of 
her husband would not have endured the wear and tear 
of so many years. Probably he would have lost his 
patience with her headaches and groans, and learned 
Che, grim silence or the bitter speech that love nevei 


AMANDAK. 


205 


knows. He might have become not only indifferent, 
but unkind : men do. But the sweet memory of their 
brief love and companionship became ideal because it 
was a memory, and he clung to it with a persistence 
reality never knows or inspires. Had she died at 
forty, and left him with two or three children and ten 
cows, he would have looked about him in a very few 
months to find some one who should fill her place: as 
it was, his days went on unsolaced in that way ; and he 
was as much an Amandian as he was a Christian, 
perhaps more so. 

But as he sat by the fire to-night in silence, — for he 
made no answer to Sally, and she was too used to his 
silences, and cared too little for him, to resent them, — 
his startled soul was forced to own that he had not 
been judicious or considerate in making his boy wear 
his mother’s name, dear and sacred as it was. 

Nothing could be done about it now. The name was 
given, and he had sense enough to see that for him to 
interfere in the affair would only exasperate it: perhaps 
he had better not speak of it even to ’Mandy. 

Rising, with a long sigh, at length he took the tallow 
candle, and stole up the stair into his boy’s room, to 
take a goud-nlghi: iooK. 

The child lay with his cheek on one hand, the dark 
lashes, so like his mother’s, fallen on to the rose-tinted 
cheek, and the red lips just parted with an even breath 
of young health: but the lashes were still wet; and 
while his father gazed at him fondly, thinking how like 
his mother he looked in that rest and position, a low 
sob, like the last swell of a storm, shook the boy’s 
chest, and a look of anger swept across his placid fore¬ 
head. Bezy Hills was grieved to the heart. Long and 


206 


somebody’s neighbobs. 


late he pondered what he should do; and even in his 
troubled sleep, when at last it came, he was haunted 
by ’Mandy’s angry face and tearful eyes. 

The next day was Saturday; and as it was good sap 
weather,—weather that “friz by night, and thew by 
day,” as Sally said,— ’Mandy went up to the sugar- 
camp with his father to stay till Sunday morning. The 
hut was substantial; and a standing bed-place, laid 
thick with spruce-boughs and sheep-skins, was delight¬ 
ful hardship to the boy. He stirred the kettles, fetched 
sap in his small pail, and carried a milk-pan of snow 
from a hidden drift between two rocks at the north 
foot of Black Mountain, in which to cool his share of 
sirup, and harden it to wax, — delicious, deleterious 
compound, that sticks the organs of speech together, 
and forbids deglutition to the strongest jaw, but has 
withal, the flavor of wild honey, and the sweetness of 
nectar Olympus never knew. 

When noon-mark was straightened out by the great 
gnomon of a tulip-tree on the turf-dial where the 
shanty stood, Bezy set some apples to roast before the 
Are, placed his tin pot of coffee on the ashes, and 
toasted some thick slices of cheese at the coals to eal 
with their rye bread and doughnuts, — a meal fit for 
any king, ’Mandy thought, its only objection being thal 
a hearty dinner did somewhat limit the possibilities ot 
eating maple-wax ; but the keen air edged his appetite, 
and demanded solids as well as sweets. 

While he was munching his last doughnut, the silence 
of the repast was suddenly broken by his father. 

“’Mandy,” said he, “I’ve heerd tell that the boys 
to school plague ye a heap about your given name ? ’ ’ 

’Mandy blushed up to the roots of his yellow hair 


AMANDAR. 


207 


'‘They do plague some, pa,” he said honestly, though 
choking a little, perhaps from the over-dry doughnut. 

“Well, I’ve figgered on’t some, an’ I don’t see but 
what ye’ll hev to stan’ it for a spell. Ye ain’t big 
enough to thrash ’em, nor to knock ’em over: when 
you be, I s’pose you will.” 

“ You bet! ” exclaimed the eight-year-old hero. 

“ But meantime, don’t ye fret about it no more’n ye 
can help. Ye’ve got mother’s name as near as I could 
fix it; an’ you an’-me think a sight o’ mother, don’t 
we? ” 

’Mandy nodded : his mouth was still full, and pathos 
was not his forte. 

“Ye see, ef ye’d ben a little gal, why, ’twould hev 
come right; but ye wa’n’t, an’ I don’t know as I 
wanted for ye to be.” 

“ I didn’t,” shouted the indignant boy. 

“ But for all, I wanted ye to hev mother’s name. 
She was the best an’ the beautifulest cretur ever was, 
an’ them boys hain’t any one on ’em got no sech a 
mother. I expect if they hed, they’d be proper glad to 
hev her given name tacked to ’em.” 

“Hullo! there’s a ’chuck!” shouted ’Mandy; and 
off he went, seizing a stake, and knocking over the 
apples, to wage war with a sober old woodchuck that 
had come out to inspect the savory odors in his usually 
quiet haunts. 

Bezy sighed, but the sugar needed stirring: and 
when ’Mandy came back from the chase, disgusted 
jhat the froward beast would not stop to be killed, his 
father said no more to him about his school troubles; 
but what he had sail dwelt long in the child’s mind, 
and had its effect. 


208 


somebody’s neighbors. 


Tlie old saying, that “the blood of the martyrs is 
the seed of the Church,” is as applicable to other aflec- 
tioDS as to religion. The more the boys reviled and 
laughed at ’Mandy for wearing his mother’s name, the 
more closely he became attached to it; and when lime 
came to his aid with its slow security, and his thews 
and sinews were both strong and hard with his sturdy 
life and free growth, the boys of Hampton began to 
respect the “ dynamic reasons of larger bones,” and 
])e careful how they roused the wrath they found latent 
under Amandar’s kindly, handsome visage. 

About the time he was seventeen years old, there 
came to the village a distant relative of Bezaleel HiUs, 
of the same surname. Samuel Hills had lived hitherto 
by the seaside; but malaria, creeping slowly up the 
Connecticut coast, had laid its chilly, withering finger 
on him after he was fifty years old, and driven him 
northward into the pure mountain air which his father 
had left, a long time since, to settle on a fat farm near 
Guilford. He exchanged these green acres now for as 
many of mountain pasture on the outskirts of Hampton 
and, under the care of his wife and daughter, the old 
brown house put on a new aspect. Morning-glories 
twined over the windows, the white-rose trees were 
pruned and trained, and a ‘ ‘ posy bed ’ ’ by the south 
door made the yard gay and fragrant. 

It was not strange that Samuel Hills’s daughter 
should be named Amanda, though to her relatives it 
seemed a peculiar and startling coincidence. Amandji 
was as common in those days as Susie, Allie, Sallie, 
or any other absurdity ending in ie is in these; and 
to tJie cultivated ear there is a far greater decency iu 
whole of any feminine appellative than in the 


AMANDAR. 


209 


nicknames that should be kept for household usage and 
private fondness. Amanda wore her grandmother’s 
name, who received it from her mother. And so little 
did she know of her relatives, that, till she came tc 
Hampton, she was all unaware of having a distant 
cousin of almost her own name. It was a passport 
at once to the good graces of Bezaleel and his son 
that this bright, pretty young girl should so recall the 
wife and mother they both idolized. Amandar, just 
budding into manhood, was carried away captive at 
once. And Amanda, who was his own age, rather 
looked down upon him in point of years, because a 
woman is always so much older than a man, whatever 
equality of age may be shared by the two. 

Yet she was by no means unwilling to add another 
trophy to those already dangling at her belt; and she 
smiled, dimpled, coquetted, till the handsome, awkward 
boy, who took the serious side of the matter, felt like 
a bewitched creature, and wore his chains with a silent 
joy, not yet knowing that they were chains. 

But, while he was falling fathoms deep in love with 
Amanda, other youths in Hampton discovered how 
pleasant it was to be welcomed in the cheery brown 
house by such sparkling eyes and red lips; and she 
had a welcome for all. 

Amandar began to feel pangs of jealous fury, to 
lose his sleep by night, and his appetite by day. Being, 
however, a practical youth, instead of wasting his time 
in sighs and philandering, he worked harder than ever 
and “ laid about him,” as Robinson Crusoe says, to 
discover how he should be soonest able to marry, and 
80 carry his idol off from all competitors. 

The farm was his father’s: he could not ask him to 


210 


somebody’s neighbors. 


give it lip ; nor would its sterile acres ever furnish more 
than the barest support to their family as it was. 
Amandar's desire was to go into some sort of business, 
and make money more rapidly; and to this end he at 
last persuaded Bezy to let him go to work in the iron- 
furnace at Hampton Falls, — a little offshoot of Hamp¬ 
ton, on the Black River, — only two miles from Bezy 
Hills’s farm. 

He worked in the furnace four years ; his intelligence 
and strength bringing gradual promotion, and his wages 
accumulating in the Rutland savings bank. But he 
had not the faith or the patience (whichever it was) of 
Jacob; for the time he served for his Rachel seemed 
interminable, and was rendered even more tantalizing 
b}^ that young woman’s persistent coquetry with other 
men. It was true she did not engage herself to any of 
them: there were too many delights in having a train 
of lovers for Amanda to sacrifice all to one. But no 
man likes to have his own idol set up for public wor¬ 
ship ; and ’Mandy was too young and too dreadfully in 
earnest to be philosophical about the matter. 

It happened soon after he was twenty-one that his 
brooding jealousy exploded, and brought his affairs to 
a crisis. He had been away from home on some affair 
of the furnace; for he had now advanced so far as to 
hav^e all the outside busiuess in his hands, and he was 
mounted on top of the lumbering “stage” that for a 
few miles carried passengers between the railroad 
station and Hampton Falls. Before him, on either 
side of the driver (who happened to be a new man on 
the line, and quite ignorant of Hampton people), sat 
two young men of that class whom the English cal 
“bagmen,” and the Americans “drummers.” Theii 


AMANDAR. 


211 


conversation was not peculiarly interesting at first; 
I)iit, as Hampton steeple came in sight, one said to the 
other, — 

“ What takes you to this little hole, Harris? ** 

“I’m going to see ’Mandy Hills,” answered the 
other, with a smirk of such meaning that Amandar’s 
blood boiled. 

“After a girl, eh? I thought you was drummin’.” 

Harris chuckled, and the other went on. “Pretty, 
is she?” 

“ You bet! ” replied the indiscreet youth, with still 
another laugh. 

“ What style? 

“Why, Smith, I don’t know: photographs haven’t 
been exchanged yet; that is ” — chuckling again — 
“ no colored ones.” 

“Just like all country girls, I dare say, — hair 
straight as a candle, and nose the length of your am.” 

“Not a bit. Hair curly, and nose a little turned 
up.” 

Here Harris laughed uproariously; and Amandar 
clinched his fist, and straightened out his arm danger¬ 
ously near the young man’s head. 

“ Well, good luck to you! Hope she won’t put on 
airs, and mitten you, to wind up.” 

“Not she,” laughed Harris, as if the idea was the 
most exquisite of jokes. . “ She ain’t that kind. She’ll 
fall into my mouth quick as ever I open it, you bet 
your head.” 

The words had scarce left his lips when Amandai ’s 
hand clutched his collar, and he was flung off the seat 
just as the stage drew up at the Hampton tavern ; and 
our hero, jumping down after him, administered a 


212 


somebody’s neighbors. 


sound pommelling to the surprised drummer before 
interfering spectators could pull him off. 

The bruised and bleeding youth was rescued, done 
up in vinegar and brown paper, and put to bed up 
stairs, and a justice of the peace brought immediately 
to deal with the assailant, who, having washed his 
hands at the pump, sat down and waited for arrest as 
calmly as if assault and battery were his profession. 

However, the battered party could not appear against 
him that day, and there was no place to shut him up: 
so he gave bail, went to the office for an hour, and 
thence walked home to tea. 

Hampton, of com’se, was all alive with the affair 
before morning ; and early next day Amandar appeared 
before the justice, with his disfigured adversary, who 
had his temple covered with wet brown paper, and 
diffused a mingled odor of cider-vinegar and New-Eng- 
land rum through the assembly that crammed the little 
court-room. Amandar could not bring himself to con¬ 
fess the motive for his apparently unprovoked assault: 
so he submitted to the heavy fine imposed, and private¬ 
ly sought occasion to apologize to Harris, or rather to 
explain. The young man burst into a roar of laugliter, 
all the more uncontrollable that Amandar’s face blazed 
all over at this unseemly levity, till Harris at last 
caught breath. 

“ My dear fellow, I never saw Miss Hills in my life, 
nor ever knew there was such a person: but you and I 
have corresponded about that pig-iron, though of course 
as I only signed my letter Fowle, Norris, and Co., per 
H., you could not know my name; but I had seen 
yours, and been rather — beg pardon — rather amused 
at it: so when Jack began to question me (which he is 


AM AN DAK. 


21B 


mighty apt to do), I thought I’d blind him, and an¬ 
swered as I did. Particulars were made to order: I 
don’t see how they came to fit. Honest, now, did 
they ? ” 

“ Well, her hair does curl some,” awkwardly admit¬ 
ted Amandar, unconscious of nightly papering and 
pinching, “ and I didn’t know but you’d call her nose 
pug. I don’t.” 

Harris could not help another laugh; and Amandar 
almost said, “ Confound my name! ” but, just as his 
lips opened, loyalty and love for the dead mother closed 
them; and he only said, “Well, I was a fool, and I 
own it.” 

“ You can’t say no fairer than that, old fellow. 
Shake hands on it, will you? ” 

And Amandar and Harris “made up,” as children 
say ; but the unlucky name had not yet done its work. 
Somebody overheard this conversation, or “Jack,” 
sharing in the explanation, betrayed it with his easy 
tongue ; for in twenty-four hours it had reached Aman¬ 
da, and made her furious. New England, as a rule, 
does not take kindly to sentiment, even of the chival- 
ric sort; and Hampton people were only too glad to 
get a laugh on Amandar, who had always, as their 
phrase went, “ kept himself to himself.” And Aman¬ 
da well knew she would be teased and laughed at un¬ 
mercifully. But her namesake, unconscious of her 
wrath, and feeling that the time had come when he had 
courage to ask her, since the blow he struck for hei 
sake seemed to have roused his dormant manhood, and 
proved to himself that be had at last the daring to 
“Put it to the touch, 

To gain or lose it all,” 

Betook himself to the hill farm that very night. 


214 


somebody’s neighboes. 


He was too absorbed in his purpose to understand 
Amanda’s silence and the flash of her eyes; but the 
moment they were alone, in good set terms he asked 
her to marry him. 

“I guess not!” she retorted bitterly. “I don’ 
know how you ask. Hain’t you made my name a by 
word and a hissin’ already down to the village? I’ve 
heerd, sir, about your knockin’ down that city feller; 
and I don’t think it’s no great recommend to a man to 
have him ready to quarrel for a breath, as you may 
say.” 

“But, ’Mandy,” gasped the astonished suitor, “I 
couldn’t set such store by you as I do, and hear a man 
speak light of you that way.” 

“ Then stop a-settin’ store by me, ’s all I’ve got to 
say.” 

“ I can’t do it, I can’t: I’d as lief root out twitch- 
grass out o’ a ten-acre lot. I can’t no more stop likin’ 
of ye’n I can stop breathin’.” 

“Well, I don’ know’s that’s my blame,” retorted 
Amanda, with genuine scorn. 

It seemed to her this man was a weak fool: a Scy¬ 
thian wooer, who would have knocked her down and 
carried her away across his saddle, would have com¬ 
manded her respect much more. Amandar was far too 
much in love to perceive the trait in his charmer’s char¬ 
acter which would have made his marriage with her 
emphatically “the curse of a granted prayer.” He 
could not yet take no for an answer: his misery and 
his passion made him abject. He went on, “Maybe 
I’ve hurried up matters too much ; try and think on’t, 
Amandy. I’ll wait; I can wait — I’d wait seven year, 
like the man in the Bible, if so be you’d take me to the 
end on’t, as he was took.” 


AMANDAR. 


215 


There is a curious provision of Providence in the 
nature of girls who are not sophisticated by life oi 
education, which makes a man whom they do not love, 
but who loves them, actually hateful and disgusting 
the moment he betrays his devotion. It seemed to 
Amanda that her lover was intolerable ; she would have 
liked to drive him out of the house; her whole nature 
rose up in an instinctive revolt against him ; she shud¬ 
dered inwardly at the idea of his presence continually 
before her, and her wrath found words. 

“Hain’t you got eyes, Amandar Hills?” she said 
with cold fury. “Don’t you see I mean no when I 
say no? Let alone that I wouldn’t marry you ef you 
was the last created critter of the masculine sect in the 
hull universe, I wouldn’t never marry a man that I 
set by like all possessed ef he hed a gM’s name: so 
there now! ” 

This was brutal, but convincing. Amandar’s head 
dropped on his breast. He picked up his hat, and loi¬ 
tered out of the door, feeling strangely weak and 
uncertain, yet withal a little indignant, from an odd 
consciousness that his mother’s memory had not been 
respected. He was not given to analyzing his sensa¬ 
tions. He could feel, but he could not “ peep and bota¬ 
nize ’ ’ in his own soul: he could only cast a wistful 
glance at the green flower-set mound in the graveyard 
as he went by, and send a tender thought to the memo¬ 
ry that was so far the only religion he possessed, but, 
like all human religions, had no power to heal the hurt 
within him. 

It happened that Sally had been at the hillside farm 
that evening to return some yeast borrowed in an emer¬ 
gency ; and not finding Amanda’s mother in the kitch- 


216 


somebody’s neighbors. 


en, and hearing voices in the front-room, she naturally 
went tc the door to see if Mrs. Hills was there, and in 
the little entry her steps were arrested by the pleading 
sound of her boy’s voice. She loved Amandar little 
less than if he had been her own child ; and her faith¬ 
ful old heart sank as she gathered the sense of his low, 
eager words. It did not occur to her to go away : she 
had not been educated into that sense of honor, which 
is not a native trait of women ; and her blood boiled as 
she heard Amanda’s cruel words, so distinctly and 
curtly uttered that they were like so many blows. In¬ 
stinct taught her not to follow the rejected lover, and 
offer him comfort: she only set down her yeast-pitcher 
and left the house, feeling that she could not restrain 
her tongue if she met Amanda then and there. 

Poor old Sally ! Amandar writhed and groaned and 
tossed all night in purely self-centred misery; but she, 
in the next chamber, sighed and woke also. Tears of 
deep pity and grief stole from her dim eyes, and wet 
her sallow, wrinkled cheeks with the most unselfish of 
all suffering ; yet the pathos and the picturesqueness of 
the situation all lay with him, for is not a despairing 
lover by far a finer figure than a sympathizing old 
woman ? 

Yet could we but look at the pair, having our sight 
purged by some diviner euphrasy than conventional 
literature or romantic poetry supplies, would not Sally 
appear the nobler and lovelier of the sufferers ? How¬ 
ever that may be, Amandar never knew what pure tears 
were shed for him that night, or what honest pangs 
tortured poor Sally for his sake. He got up the nex,* 
morning and went to his work as usual; but the spring 
vf his life was broken, its interest gone. Nothing from 


AMANDAR. 


217 


within could help him; nothing without offered aid. 
He set himself with listless quiet to endure : that alone 
was left to him, — the resource of a dumb animal, the 
vis inertia of the tree that lies where it falls. If help 
was ever to come, it must seek him and save him with¬ 
out his will or wish. His father looked at him with 
sad eyes, but said nothing. Sally cooked every dainty 
dish she could remember, or invent from her small 
resource of material; but all was alike to the weary 
l)ody that held this stricken soul. That the two who 
idolized and attended him never offered tender speech, 
genthi caress, loving look or touch, was not for want 
of love, but from the dreadful reticence that underlies 
all New-England character, and forbids it to blossom 
in expression, though, like some abnormal plant, it may 
bear fruit abundantly in deeds, from the most insignifi¬ 
cant or unlovely flowers. 

So the summer went on drearily enough. The routine 
of seedtime and harvest, old as the world’s gray ribs, 
recurrent as the sad story of life, occupied Bezaleel 
Hills as it had done over and over before: into many 
a furrow he ploughed useless regrets and defeated 
hopes ; for he was hardly less disappointed than his 
son, though the bitterest element of Amandar’s trou¬ 
ble, the love that he had wasted, was not a part of his 
father’s pain. Yet, for all the ache of the sower, the 
regardless seed absorbed dews of night and summer 
showers, softened, sprouted, burst into the blade, shot 
into the stalk, swelled into the heavy-freighted ear, with 
jje divine sequences of nature as gladly as if there 
were no humanity in the atmosphere; also the fair 
pink blooms of the orchards painted the knotted old 
houghs, wiled the bees with their delicate bitter per 


218 


somebody’s neighboks. 


fume and drop of limpid honey, faded, fell, gave way 
to small green spheres rounding daily to full-orbed 
fruit that lay at last in heaps of gold and crimson on 
the long, scant grass below; the forests feathered into 
waving, verdant plumes, darkened, rioted in brilliance 
indescribable, and whirled away their finery cn the 
wild autumnal winds : but there was no parallel growth 
or loss in the dull sorrow that had taken hold of Aman- 
dar’s strong nature. Humanity is not the flower of an 
hour or a season: it takes a lifetime for development, 
a long tale of years for its growth, fruitage, and death. 
Its harvests are sudden, and it sleeps long ages in the 
dust before any resurrection; but then comes another 
and eternal up-springing, a bloom that knows no har¬ 
vest, — a perennial spring. 

It was in the bitter days of November that Sally 
heard of her sister’s death in a remote village of 
Maine. Hepsy was her only living relative, and the 
stringent separation of poverty had kept them apart 
since they were children. Occasionally a letter had 
passed between them; but further than these brief, 
clumsy, ill-spelled messages, Sally knew nothing of 
her sister’s life except its bare circumstances. She 
had married Sam Tucker, a poor, amiable, “ shiftless ” 
creature, half farmer, half fisherman, and had the poor 
man’s blessing, — ten children; but six of these lay 
buried in Fosdick Island graveyard, three had been 
lost in a boat out blue-fishing. Sam had been dead 
ten years ; and there was left of all the tribe only the 
fifth child. Love, a girl of eighteen, who had been her 
mother’s sole comfort and company since the lasf 
baby was laid beside its father. 

Hepsy had known she was about to die, and with 


AMANDAR. 


219 


much pain and delay penned a short good-by to Sally^ 
begging her to find some place for Love where she 
could earn her living, and be near her aunt. 

“For she’s a kinder cossit, Sary; and I mistmst 
she’ll hanker after me sum. I want you shc-uld be 
muther to her nigh as ken be, and sorter harten of her 
upp when she taiks on, as mabbe she will. Poor 
cretur ! I hate to hev to leave her ; but I hoap the Lord 
and you’ll take keer on her.” 

This letter came enclosed in one from a neighbor, 
announcing Mrs. Tucker’s death; and Sally, with red 
eyes and mild snuffles, put it into Bezy’s hand to read. 

He puzzled through it, and wiped the back of his 
hand across his eyes, muttering under his breath, 
“Darn them cobwebs!” though he knew, and Sally 
knew, that no spider that ever was laid in egg was the 
author of the dimness he was ashamed to own. 

“ lYell, Sally, the’ ain’t but one thing for to do ; an’ 
that is for you to go to the island, an’ fetch the poor 
gal hum with ye. Fetch her here, I say, till she finds 
a better place. She’ll be dreadful lonesome an’ scary, 
to begin with: you must get her used to folks grad- 
ooal. There’s plenty room in this old barrack, an’ 
enough vittles ; an’ she’s welcome. Nuf said.” 

So Sally, who had made a perfect autocrat of Bezy 
of late years, meekly obeyed, drew out her small sav¬ 
ings from the bank, and with trembling ignorance 
went her way, managing to reach Fosdick Island 
safely, and in a week returned with her charge to 
Hampton, slipping back into her old place with a sigh 
of satisfaction. Love was a great surprise to the 
S(|uire, who had thougnt of her as a lank, frightened, 
homely down-East girl, and stared in amaze at the 


220 


somebody’s neighbors. 


quiet, sweet face that smiled up at him so modestly, 
the trim, plump figure, the exquisitely neat dress, and 
shining hair. 

“I swan! ” he said to Amandar, “ she’s the most 
like one of them blue pidgins of any thing I ever see 
in a woman.” 

But Amandar did not care. 

As the year went on, a new sense of comfort stole 
into the house. Love had that inborn power of mak¬ 
ing any place she inhabited attractive and home-like, 
which is a greater gift to a woman than any artistic 
faculty. She brightened up the dark kitchen with gay 
patchwork cushions in the arm-chairs, set two scarlet- 
flowered geraniums in the south window, which she had 
fetched from her old home, and pinned up some chintz 
curtains to the windows, relics of Sally’s former house¬ 
keeping ; then she scoured up the old pewter platters 
to silvery brightness, and made the brass tops of shovel 
and tongs radiant. A red shawl served for stand- 
cover, and a few books always lay on it. The kitchen 
looked like a place to live in, not a mere shelter 
and feeding-trough; and not its least ornament was 
Love’s calm, sweet face, the brown eyes shining a wel¬ 
come to each comer, the brown hair braided and pinned 
up with that smooth glitter carefully kept hair shows, 
and the white apron, cuffs, and collar spotlessly pure 
igainst her black woollen dress. Her very face ex¬ 
pressed the atmosphere that she seemed to dwell in, 
and to spread about her a sense of peace, composure, 
and rest. 

She reminded Bezy of his lost wife many and many 
a time. Her eyes were like Amanda’s, so was her 
shining hair ; and though Love’s health and plumpness 


AMANDAR. 


221 


were as unlike Amanda’s frail delicacy as could be, 
Bezy did not place any stress on that: he thought it 
merely the natural distinction between the girl and the 
young mother. At any rate, she was like his ’Mandy, 
almost as gentle and sweet; and his old young life 
came back to him like a lovely, mournful dream as he 
looked at Love sitting where his wife had sat in their 
brief happiness, flitting in and out at little household 
cares just as she did, and making the house home 
again, as in all these years it had never been. And, 
as the days went on, a subtle sense of comfort and 
peace stole, even against his will, into Amandar’s 
heart. He scarce ever looked at Love, or spoke to 
her; but he could not help hearing his father’s voice 
soften when he said “Lovey,” nor could he fail to 
see how the pucker was getting smoothed out of Sally’s 
forehead, or ignore the fact that the daily meals were 
better cooked, more neatly served, more savory of 
smell, in every way more appetizing, than before. 
A man’s heart and his stomach are said to be inter¬ 
changeable terms. I would not so malign the sterner 
sex as to indorse this fact; yet I certainly know of 
more than one instance where a woman’s sole tie to an 
unloving, selflsh, cold husband, has been her power of 
ministering deftly to his chronic dyspepsia. I am 
sure that I have seen this despised faculty avert 
divorce, and preserve family unity, where all else failed, 
and love had never been. The moral of which is, 
young ladies, learn to cook well. 

And how was it with Lovey ? Dear girl-reader, how 
would it have been with you, if, homeless, almost 
friendless, you had been brought into the daily society 
of a youth good-looking enough, well-to-do, intelligent, 
and the victim of an unfortunate attachment? 


222 


somebody’s neighbobs. 


Dear little Lovey! She pitied Amandar w >a all hei 
Bweet, gentle heart. She thought Amanda Hills a 
cruel, heartless coquette ; which was rather unjust to 
^Mandy, at her worst a mere coarse, commonplace girl, 
not at all the being Amandar painted her. So her 
beautiful pity worked itself out in gentle deeds : it was 
she who darned the youth’s stockings with such an 
even lattice of yarn, so smoothly ended or begun that 
his foot never felt the new fabric; probably it never 
would have troubled him if she had put on flannel 
patches, but there are as many works of supereroga¬ 
tion in love as in the Romish religion. 

She, too, saw that no button ever missed its duty, 
no string was ever torn off or knotted on any of his 
clothes. She brushed his Sunday suit every Saturday, 
with a little of the same devotion that impelled her 
prayers, and stitched his collars with a tender thought 
to every two threads, as well as a stitch ; and hemming 
his handkerchiefs gave her a more exquisite joy than 
the finest Kensington embroidery ever confers on its 
votaries. 

Yes, Lovey was in love; in love after the genuine 
old fashion of Eden, when there was but one man for 
one woman; in love without an alloy of diamonds or 
settlements, trousseau, or lace and white satin ; in love 
in that divine, almighty, absorbing, unselfish way, that 
counts not its own life dear unto itself in comparison 
with the lightest wish or want of the beloved. And 
Amandar, feeling the sun rise on him, did not see it; 
growing warm and light of heart as he went on with 
his back to the east, he yet wist not that it shone. 

But spring at last kissed the land: the brown sad 
fields softened in tint, the brooks laughed, the wintei 


AMANDAR. 


223 


grain sprung up afresh on hill and dale, and bluebu’dg 
ventured to call out their small encouragements from 
leafless trees. Work at the forge was dull, and Aman- 
dar staid at home to help his father plough. The first 
few days of May were warm even to sultriness: and 
holding a plough on the hillside in the blaze of noon 
pi’oved too much for his unaccustomed head ; a sudden 
ache smote him, so severe that he had to stop and 
sit down to recover from the shock, which almost 
amounted to sunstroke. His father was startled at 
the pale face and blue lips, that told their own story, 
and sent him home at once. When he reached the 
house, Sally and Love were taking in the wash from 
the lines in the orchard ; and Amandar went up to his 
room without seeing them. The cool shade and soft 
air flowing through his blinds relieved and soothed him ; 
so that he fell asleep at once, and awoke some hours 
afterward to the sound of voices. The two women 
were sitting on the back door-steps; and before he 
was really conscious of where he was, and whose voices 
he heard, Sally said to Love, — 

“ The meat-man told me a piece o* news to-day.^’ 

Lovey laughed like a song-sparrow, for it was the 
joke of the house to call the meat-man Sally’s news¬ 
paper. 

“ Well, h 6 did really, this time. He says for true 
that Amandy Hills is a-goin’ to marry old Square 
Shores down to Ludlow.” 

The listener felt a dull pang in his heart; and a 
thrill of sharp surprise followed, to feel the pang was 
80 dull. 

‘‘Isn’t she goin' to do well?” asked Love, rather as 
a matter of course than for any deep interest in the 
subject. 


224 


SOMEBODY’S NEIGHBOES. 


“ Well, I don’ Imow’s she is, an’ I don’ know 
Bhe is. He’s got means, — he’s got a sight of means, 
if that’s all; an’ he lives into a two-story yaller brick 
nouse, with a big gardin, and a picket-fence all round 
on’t; but he’s cur’us, dark-complected, an’ jest as 
pernickity as an old maid, and meaner — my landl 
meaner’n dirt. If she’s marryin’ on him for mpney, 
she won’t get none on’t.” 

“I hope she won’t,” burst out Love in a righteous 
indignation. “I think anybody that marries anybody 
for money ought to get come up with every time.” 

“ Highty-tighty! Why, Lovey, you ain’t riled none, 
be ye? Money’s like fried cakes, real handy to hev in 
the house, now I tell ye. ’F I was a gal agin, I’d 
keep an eye out to’t, you’d better believe, when folks 
come a-foolin’ round me. ’Tain’t to be sneezed at.” 

“I don’t believe you would one bit. Aunt Sally. I 
know you, and you wouldn’t marry a man for his 
money no more’n I would.” 

“Well, ef you know so much, child, what on airth 
would you marry a man for, ef I may be so bold? ” 

Lovey’s fair sweet face colored lilce a peach-blossom, 
from soft round throat to shining hair, as she answered, 
“For nothing only because I loved him so I couldn’t 
help it.” 

“ My land! seems to know a heap about it. Well, 
’Mandy ain’t that sort: she wouldn’t hev our ’Mandar 
jest CCS he’s got a queer name.” 

“Aunt Sally! Is that what makes him so awful 
sober?” 

“Jest exactly that. I heerd her tellin’ of him my¬ 
self, accidental like, as ye may say; an’ she done it as 
though she knocked him down with a stun, and kindei 


AMANDAR. 


226 


liked to. I tell ye I never heerd a woman no harder 
spoken than ’Mandy Hills was, in this mortal world.” 

“ 0 Aunt Sally, how hateful! I should have thought 
she’d ha’ liked him all the better for thinkin’ so much 
of his dead mother. I’m sure I felt just like cryin’ 
when you told me about the squire’s namin’ of him 
after the one he set such store by; seemed as though 
'twas most worth while to die, if it made folks think 
so much of you.” 

“Why, how you talk, child! You ain’t dreadful 
way-wise yet, it’s plain to behold. It’s a sight better 
to hev ’em set by ye whilst ye live. It don’t do Miss 
Hills no good up there under the mulleins an’ burdocks 
to hev the square allers thinkin’ about her, and mournin’ 
after her.” 

“ I don’t believe it I ” retorted Lovey, her soft voice 
thrilled with indignation. “I don’t believe but what 
she knows all about it, and is sort of comforted by it. 
She ain’t up there in the forlorn old graveyard: she’s 
in a better place, and I know she likes to be loved 
more’n ever. My gracious ! do you think I shouldn’t 
know, if I was ever so dead, that anybody I set my 
life by had forgot me, and taken another into my 
place? ” 

“ Well, weU, well, child, don’t be so stirred up. I 
don’t know nothin’ about it, nor you don’t nuther, an’ 
it’s time to put the tea to draw. Fetch up the butter, 
will ye, and cut the bread? ” And Sally walked olf to 
her work, unable to cope with the ardent young heart 
that life and grief had not yet tamed down to hard 
sense and practical philosophy. 

But there was another heart, still young, if wounded, 
that heard and responded, in the chamber overhead, 


226 


somebody’s neighbors. 


where Amandar lay in the cool silence, listening — 
very dishonorably no doubt — to the door-step conver¬ 
sation. If he had read Shakspeare, probably he would 
have quoted that well-worn passage : — 

“ Oh ! it came o’er my ear like the sweet south, 

That breathes upon a bank of violets.” 

As it was, he had a sense of comfort and peace enter 
his very soul from the genuine and tender sympathy 
Love bestowed on him. There was a woman, then, 
who not only did not despise his name, but could love 
him the better for it, — a heart that knew what a beloved 
memory was, and admired the respect in which the 
living held it. 

Yes, Amandar began to see the sun. There is no 
creature on earth so consolable as man. A dog will 
mourn his lost master to the death, and a woman 
bewail her husband till she rejoins him; but in man 
there lies a sublime store of affection that must ex¬ 
pend itself on somebody, — generally on some woman. 
Amandar was no exception to this great compensatory 
rule. He had resisted it longer than usual, because of 
a certain trait in his nature, — a tendency to monotony, 
— which he inherited, diminished in descent, from his 
father; but now resistance fell, lilie the walls of Jeri¬ 
cho, before the blast of a breath. The queen was 
dead: long live the queen ! He began from that hour 
to recognize and cultivate a sort of healthy hatred of 
Amanda, to wonder that he had never understood her 
character before, and to draw daily the most odious of 
comparisons between her and Lovey. 

In short, he fell manfully in love again ; and, before 
the ploughed land was well harrowed and seeded, the 


AMANDAR. 


227 


new passion had sprouted so well, that he himself 
recognized it, and began to wonder if it would be suc¬ 
cessful. But Lovey was timid, shy, and evasive as n. 
nestling partridge. It was, or seemed, many a long 
day before Amandar could detain her from her occupa¬ 
tions long enough to tell the old story; and when one 
day, with masculine will, he swept the clothes off the 
line himself, and took possession of the small schemer 
who had made their ingathering an excuse to avoid 
him, it was a matter of hours to persuade her that he 
really was in deep earnest. She could not understand 
that the love which had shipwrecked him was a thing 
of the past; and a new passion, as genuine as the first, 
had taken true hold of him. It was only after long 
argument and iterated assurances, that Lovey, moved 
no doubt by the conviction so earnestly expressed, that 
she alone of all women could have availed to heal his 
wound, consented to believe in him, and revealed her 
own honest, tender heart, with a gentle shyness that 
became it as moss does a rosebud. 

It was a day of rejoicing in that house when Aman¬ 
dar told his father and Sally that Love had consented 
to be his wife. Bezaleel already loved her as a daugh¬ 
ter, and she only disputed Sally’s heart with Amandar. 
And as for the lover, he was happy: in this case it 
was he who held the cheek out, and Lovey who kissed 
it. He was not now slave, but master; and the natu¬ 
ral position set him at ease, and restored the self- 
respect Amanda had from the beginning trampled on, 
and at last outraged. Before the harvest came, they 
were married; and, under Love’s household reign, 
peace and brightness came permanently to live in the 
old farmhouse. Amandar’s mother found another wor- 


228 


somebody's neighboes. 


shipper at her homely shrine ; and, if there was a thorn 
in Lovey’s roses, it was the fact that no little girl was 
given her to wear the sacred appellation of its grand¬ 
mother. And, of all the fine boys who made in their 
turn a temporary bedlam of the farm, not one was 
permitted to be called after his father; for Amandar 
had answered for himself the old question, and found 
out that there is a great deal in a name. 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


Tadnton Street is long and high. A wide road, 
skirted by equally wide strips of turf, in whose shal¬ 
low gutters (a single furrow of the plough, grassed over 
by time) grow Mayweed, yarrow, and nettle, herbs of 
repellant touch and vile odor, it runs on the top of 
Taunton Hill, from whose broad and long crest you 
can see more of Western Connecticut in its develop¬ 
ment of bare round hills, mullein-stalks, stones, and 
life-everlasting, than is good for the soul of the thrifty, 
or pleasant to the eyes of the discerning. 

Whatever is agreeable to behold lies on either hand 
in the white, red, or brown farmhouses, each in its 
own green yard, with a garden on one hand and a lane 
leading to the barn and shed on the other; some more 
adorned than others with lilac-bushes and sticky rose- 
acacias ; others more neatly ordered about doorstep, 
chip-yard, and picket-fence; but all wearing a certain 
patient and pathetic homeliness that must have risen 
thousands of times before dying eyes, and filled them 
with homesick tears. 

On the very top of Taunton Hill, or, rather, on the 
middle of its broad back, stood the old white meeting¬ 
house, and behind it, on the eastern slope, the grave¬ 
yard,— no elegant cemetery, where one can return to 
dust regardless of expense in rosewood and velvet, 

229 


280 


somebody’s neighbors. 


wept over by marble angels holding cold blossoms, 
but a quiet, deser^ied-looking place of burial, wearing 
the natui’al loneliness of death; altogether separated 
from life, except at the rare and silent funerals that 
gathered there on business, or when, once in a decade, 
some profane antiquary, fumbling after dates among 
the brown stones, discovered among those gaping and 
agonized cherubs a record to the effect that Mrs 
Lovlna Jinkinson’s “ ethereal parts became a seraph 
on the 15th of June,’’ and smiled behind his silk 
handkerchief. 

Half a mile beyond this abode of religion and mor¬ 
tality was a small red house, standing in its own yard, 
and having a little garden to the south, but neither 
lane nor barn : a drooping elm-tree shaded it in front, 
and one huge apple-tree spread its gnarled growth 
over the end of the garden; cinnamon-roses grew on 
either side of the flat gray door-stone ; but no further 
floral decorations softened the grim aspect of those 
always-shut windows, behind whose green glass, 
greener paper shades preserved a ghastly twilight in 
the “ front-room.’’ But a little sidling path, well worn 
through the turf, led round the corner to the south 
door, a place of cheerier countenance, where broods 
of chickens peeped and pecked; where the cat washed 
her face in the sunshine; and where the opened door 
gave pleasant glimpses of a clean kitchen, with ’Sire 
Mariner, in a tall, list-bottomed arm-chair, sitting by 
the Are doing nothing, and Polly his daughter bus¬ 
tling about doing every thing. Desire Mariner (com¬ 
monly called ’Sire) was a placid, weakly, peace-loving 
old man, who had been sexton and shoemaker time 
out of mind in Taunton Street. If you wanted a pair 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


231 


of shoes, he could make them in three weelcs, if noth¬ 
ing happened : if you wanted a grave dug, it took him 
all day to do it. His wife had lived in a state of bustle 
and aggravation while she did live; and, when she 
died, her child carried on the business. 

Well, Polly, what be you a-goin’ to do now?’* 
said Mrs. Perkins, the deacon’s wife, to Polly, as she 
entered the house behind her, coming home from 
INIarah Mariner’s funeral. 

“Learn a trade,” said Polly, nowise resenting the 
freedom of speech which interfered with her private 
affairs on what should have been a solemn and sad occa¬ 
sion. 

“The land’s sake!” and up went Mrs. Perkins’s 
eyes. “ Learn a trade ! Well, I never! ’n’ here you’ve 
had a real good edication, ’u’ might jest as well get a 
good deestrick school as not, ’n’ stay to home ’n’ take 
keer of him ! ” >,_ 

“I ha’n’t had no great schoolin'. Miss Perkins, 
though I s’pose I could make shift to knock what little 
I had into childern’s heads; but keep school I never 
will. Firstly I hate damp boys : they’re always gettin’ 
damp and steamin’, and I’d as lieve be choked to 
once. Secondly I hate boys anyway: they’re nothin’ 
but torments. An’ thirdly 1 hate school-lceepin’. You 
don’t never suit. If you’re strict, then foUcs sez j^ou’re 
cruel and bad dispositioned: if you’re easy, an’ ’est 
git along, then you’re slack and lazy. I’d jest as 
willin’ly be a minister’s ^ife as a schoolma’am, an^ I 
can’t say no more’n that. ' No, my mind’s made up • 
mother ’n’ me talked it over. Aunt Roxy’s goin’ to 
stay here ’long of father for a year, while Samwell and 
his wife goes out to Indianny to get settled, and then 


232 


somebody’s neighbors. 


she’s goin’ too; and by that time I’ll have got 
trade learned, and come home.” 

“Well, well, I s’pose you’ll do jest a,s you’d 
ruther.” 

And so Polly did. Vain were all the remonstrances 
of friends and neighbors. Off she went the next week 
to Hartford ; and there, by dint of hard work, “ doing 
chores” for hei board, and grubbing through all tlie 
mysteries of cutting, pressing, turning, and button¬ 
holing, she became mistress of her art, and returned 
to Taunton Street as accomplished a tailoress as the 
times afforded. But alas ! her fair plans of a busy and 
vivacious life, going out da 3 ^ by da^^ to the neighboring 
farmers’ houses with her beneficent press-board, shears, 
and headless thimble, where she would be regaled with 
the best of food and the freshest of gossip, all fell 
through. ’Sire Mariner was hopelessly bed-ridden when 
Polly came back, and aunt Poxy all packed for her 
Western journey. 

Nothing very serious seemed to ail the old man. He 
nad been rheumatic, taken cold, gone to bed, and 
found it was a warm, comfortable place, and lain there 
till the unused muscles and dulled circulation became 
a fixed physical habit; and he had no energy of mind 
or elasticity of nerves to combat the mild depression 
that held him, as it were, in cobweb chains. 

Still he needed constant care, and made constant 
trouble. Polly could not leave him for more than an 
hour; and he would spill his food, and drop his snuff, 
and tip over the tallow candle, till Polly’s hair crinkled 
more fiercely than ever, and she scolded and bustled 
like a domestic blackbird. Whatever tailoring si:? 
could take in at home she did and did well, and 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 233 

even condescended to plain sewing at odd times. She 
hoed the garden after old Isr’el Grubb had dug and 
planted it; she made root-beer to sell, and concocted 
sirups of great power in cases of “humors’’ and 
“spine in the bac--c.” Sometimes she made election- 
cake, — a Connecticut institution that takes as much 
“judgment ” to its final success as a salad ; and nobody 
made such hop-yeast as Folly. All these things eked 
out a fmgal existence for the two during the next ten 
years ; and then one night ’Sire Mariner went to sleep, 
and never woke up. Mrs. Deacou Perkins had on the 
same black bombazine, the same figured lace veil over 
a brown silk bonnet, and the same gray-centred broch6 
shawl that adorned her before, when she followed 
Polly into the house this time after the funeral, with 
the same question on her thin lips, — 

“ Well, Polly, what be you goin’ to do now? ” 

“ Tailorin’,” says Polly undauntedly. 

“ I want to know ! You ain’t calculatin’ to live here 
all alone, be ye?” 

“ I don’t expect to take boarders.” 

“ Laws sakes ! I wa’n’t thinking o’ that. I should 
suppose now you’d go an’ make it your home with 
somebody. There’s your aunt Sary : she hain’t got no¬ 
body to help her, ’n’ she’s dreadful feeble this year; 
and I should think ’twould be a kind of a dooty for 
ye, and a good home.” 

“Well, now. Miss Perkins,” said Polly, sitting 
down deliberately, and evidently resolved to finish the 
matter, “I a’n’t a-goin’ into nobody’s house that 
way. I don’t b’lieve in’t. Whilst I live by myself 
an' take care of myself, I a’n’t beholden to nobody; 
nnd I know when my work's done, and what’s to pay 


234 


somebody’s neighbobs. 


for’t. I kiD sing, or laugh, or cry, or fix my hair into 
a cocked hat, and nobody’s got right or reason to say, 

‘ Why do ye so? ’ Fact is, I’ve got my liberty, ’n’ I’m 
goin’ to keep it: it’ll be hard work, p’rhaps ; but it’s 
wuth it.” 

“Well, I never did see sech a contrary creetur in 
all my born days,” sighed Mrs. Perkins. “You’ll live 
to repent it, sure as I’m alive, Polly Mariner! ’n’ 
what’s more, I don’t b’lieve you’ll stick to’t more’n 
a month! ” 

Polly felt no sinkings of heart at this denunciation : 
what had she to be afraid of ? She shut her door, and 
went to bed, no more solitary than she had been 
before. Her work was lightened of its heaviest ron 
tine ; and when she had cleared away the traces of her 
father’s occupancy, and cleaned her tiny house from 
top to bottom till the very tins shone, she sat down to 
her needle with a stout and contented heart, with 
nobody to make her afraid, though there were a few 
to molest her. 

Now, if Polly had been sixty instead of thirty-five, 
she might have been let alone, except for the kindly 
gifts of their abundance that the neighbors might send 
in. But here was a strong, healthy, intelligent woman, 
cast on her own resources, and without a relative near 
enough to interfere with her choice of livelihood. 
What a help and treasure she would be in a family ! — 
not as a mere servant, but one of the household, ready 
to fill all gaps, fasten all loose threads, and be the 
general “ knitter-up of unconsidered trifles.” 

Aunt Sary came first, — aunt by courtesy, as the 
second wife of Polly’s step (not half) uncle. She was 
a thin, pale, dreary, bilious-looking woman, with dark 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


235 


eyes set in dismal hollows, drooping lips, emaciated 
temples, and a little iron-gray hair scratched up here 
and there on her head, and crowned with a fearful 
black lace cap, that, in its turn, wore patches of dull 
purple ribbon. Aunt Sary was an invalid and a de¬ 
sponding woman. 

“And what more can I say? she said.” Talk 
about Ossa on Pelion ! what were Chimborazo on l^opo- 
catapetl compared to dyspepsia and liver-complaint on 
constitutional melancholy ? To her, every wind blew 
from the east; all clouds were tempest, and all sun¬ 
shine torrid; if snow “kilt” her, heat and verdure 
had as bad an effect; the grasshopper was more 
than a burden to her; and the mourners had gone 
about the streets of her soul for so many years, that 
everybody else had got worn out hearing them wails 
and howls, and fairly wished the funeral over. Yet 
aunt Sary had, like all the rest of us miserable sinners, 
her good and lovable points. She was kind-hearted 
when she could be brought to consider anybody else’s 
woes: she was a dutiful wife and mother. Though 
her husband’s mental thermometer always sank when 
he entered the door, and lier children kept out of her 
way, there were few women in Taunton more consci¬ 
entiously dutiful than Mrs. Sarah Platt. Her fate 
was hard; for nobody loved her, and every thing fretted 
her. Shall not one rather pity than condemn the nettle 
whose bloom is so trivial, and its foliage so repellant ? 

Polly Mariner did not feel any special compassion 
'or nettles. 

“ Well, Polly,” sighed aunt Sary, painfully laboring 
up the two steps into the kitchen, and dropping into the 
nearest chair, “you’ve been quite afflicted since I saw 


somebody’s neighbors. 


23C‘ 


ye. It’s a real mysterious Providence ’t you should 
be left so to yourself! ” (As if she was !) 

“ No ’tain’t,” snapped Polly. 

Aunt Sarah groaned. 

“ Well, I’m glad id see you. don’t feel your par’s 
loss.” 

“ Who said I didn’t, aunt Sary? I a’n’t one to go 
a-wipin’ my eyes on everybody’s han’kercher. I hadn't 
never felt a call to cry on the meetin’-house steps, 
nutlier; but that don’t say but what I’ve got feelings 
somewhere.” 

“You hadn’t got a moiierment ready to put up for 
him, I s’pose? Husband’s got a slab to spare, I 
b’lieve. He got two when Malviny and Jane Maria 
was both so took down with fever ; but you see Malviny 
got well, an’ the slab’s there in our back-shed, and 
he’s dreadful afraid it’ll get scratched and sp’ilt: so 
he’d let you hev it cheap.” 

“Well, I don’t know but what I’ll come over an’ 
dicker with him,” said Polly respectfully, somewhat 
softened by the prospect of a bargain. 

“ But that a’n’t tlie most of what I come to say, 
Polly. I know’t you’ll be dredful lonesome here, and 
husband and I’ll be real glad to have you come ’n’ make 
it your home with us. I have so many poor spells, — 
and I don’t seem to get the upper hand of ’em ; they 
rutlier gain on me, — that I should be proper glad to 
have some grown woman in the house, though I calker- 
late to do the heft of the work myself. You could 
have time to sew consider’ble, and I’d give ye the back- 
chamber, where Hanner sleeps, and you could bring 
along what beddin’ an’ furnitoor you’ve got; and J 
guess the rent of this house would pay for your clothin*, 


POT.LY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


237 


and I vvouldn’t begrudge ye what it didn’t. And more¬ 
over it a’n’t quite to my Ihiin’ for a young woman to 
live to [by] herself so : ’n there ! ” 

Mrs. Platt stopped, exhausted, wiped her face with 
a printed cotton handkerchief, and began to rock. 

Polly had been sitting speechless, with her eyes fixed 
on her aunt, as if to hear what she would say to the 
end ; and it was no pleasant thing to have those black 
eyes, so keen, so apprehending, so persistent, looking 
behind one’s words into their thoughts. No wonder 
aunt Sary’s face shone with unwonted drops of sweat! 

“ What did you pay Marthy Wade last year? ” said 
ohe at length. 

Aunt Sary stared, but spoke. 

“ AYell, I gin her a dollar a week.” (Dear reader, 
this was forty years ago.) 

“ Well now, aunt Sary, I don’t expect to go out to 
doin’ chores for nobody ; and, ef I did, I wouldn’t do it 
for nothin’. Work’s wuth pay; ’n’ when I can’t I’ll 
go to the town-farm ’n’ be took in.” 

“ O Polly, Polly! ” 

“And, what’s more, if I a’n’t old enough to take 
keer of myself, ’n’ live by myself, I don’t know who is. 
I’m five an’ thirty year old last December, ’n’ I’d cut 
my eye-teeth quite a spell ago; and I a’n’t a-goin’ to 
live with nobody, much less for nothin’, as I told ye 
before.” 

“ O Polly! I’m dredful disapp’inted, I do declare. 
I’d lotted on havin’ ye to my house. But I ha’n’t got 
no strength to battle it out with ye : an’, come to think 
on’t, I guess it’s all for the best, as providences gen¬ 
erally be; for I shouldn’t want your fellers round in 
the keepin’-room evenin’s.” 


238 


somebody’s neighbors. 


At this last little feminine fling Polly blazed ; for it 
was a notorious fact in the village, that no young man 
had ever cared to face her temper and her tongue 
enough to “ keep companywith her. 

“There, now you’ve done it! I never knew a 
dreadful good, sickly woman but what could sting jest 
as well as a honey-bee. No, ma’am! you won’t be 
troubled with me nor my company; but I wish you well 
and good-afternoon, and I hope you won’t be troubled 
with nothin’ wuss — nor your husband neither ! ” 

Mrs. Platt began to wipe her eyes, and snuffle so vio¬ 
lently that Polly knew she had driven her to the wall, 
and watched her retreat down the yard with grim satis¬ 
faction. 

Next day came another afflicter of her peace in the 
sweet guise of cousin Rachel Green, a Quakeress of 
the gentlest sort; one of those “sporadic cases,” as 
the doctors call them, of Quakerism, that now and 
then blossom out in remote New-England villages. 

Peace on earth and good will toward men embodied 
Rachel’s moral creed; and peace lived in her pure eyes, 
smoothed the fair old forehead, and almost bloomed on 
those sweet, faded lips. Something like a south wind 
in early spring sounded in Polly’s ear as she sat by the 
window, stitching a pair of overalls, though it only 
said, — 

“Good-day, Polly! Thee is as busy as ever, I 
see.” 

“Why, Miss Green! Do tell if it’s you? Walk 
right in and sit down. I’ve been kind of expectin’ ye 
quite a spell.” 

“ And I should have been to see thee before, Polly 
but I have been down to Westerly to stay with Jona 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


23J 


than’s father, who was nigh death for quite a while. ^ 
I only came back yesterday, and heard thee had expe¬ 
rienced a great loss. So I came over as quickly as I 
could/’ 

“AVell, yes: father was a kind of a loss. lie 
hadn’t been no great company for several years along 
back, and it was consider’ble of a chore to keer for 
him jest as one had oughter; but I expect I miss him 
as much as most folks would, though I a’n’t one o’ the 
frettin’ kind.” 

“ Thee has been a good daughter to him, and that is 
a comfort; and then thee must feel also that he is 
better off without the affliction of the body, and re 
joiced to meet thy mother.” 

“Well, I don’t know about that,” rejoined Polly, a 
refractory smile twdsting the deep corners of her mouth 
in spite of herself. “ I expect we’re all kind o’ made 
over in another state : ef we a’n’t, I don’t see much use 
in goin’ there.” 

Friend Green looked hard at the cooking-stove. She 
was undeniably shocked; but her habitual and un¬ 
bounded charity speedily put its own construction, like 
the outpouring of a golden mist, on Polly’s speech. 

“Yes, we shall all be changed, it saith in Scripture; 
and I think, with thee, it is a blessed change to lay off 
our mortality, and take on us spiritual garments white 
and clean.” 

Polly looked at her, but said no more. 

“I came to see thee also, Polly, to ask about thy 
plans; not in the spirit of curiosity, but that I might 
help thee if I could.” 

“ My plans is pretty much cut an’ dried, Miss Green. 

I guess I shall git enough tailorin’ to do, now’t I can 


240 


somebody's neighbors. 


go out an* do’t; *n’ Isr’el Grubb’ll fix my garden foi 
me ; and I understand plantin’ and weedin’ pretty well. 
I can raise what green sass I need to hev, an’ yarbs, 
’n’ I guess potatoes enough, because I expect to got a 
good deal o’ boardin’, you know; ’n’ that’s why I’d 
ruther go out than take work to home. Besides, it’s 
kinder refrashin’ to go round and see folks. I don’t 
nanker no great to travil to see mountains, and sea¬ 
sides, and what folks in the newspapers call ‘natur’.’ 
I’d sights liveser see folks. I lilce to hear talk, and 
talk myself, ’nd git sorter interested in what’s goin’ on. 
I expect that’s what people were meant to do, not go 
pokin’ around with their noses in the air after stumps 
and trees, and sightly places thet can’t say nor do so 
much as a fannin’-mill any time o’ day.” 

“ If those is thy feelings, Polly, don’t thee think it’s 
a leading for thee to find a home in some family where 
thee’ll be one of the household, and have thy interests, 
as it were, all in a place ? There is many a family here 
and elsewhere would be glad to have a capable person 
lilce thee amongst them.” 

“Oh, dear, Miss Green! Who’d ha’ thought you 
was goin’ to pester me about that too? I tell you 
what, I’ve made up my mind about it, ’n’ it’ll take a 
sight to change it. I a’n’t one o’ them complyin’ and 
good-natered critturs that’ll give up, ’n’ give up, ’n’ give 
up, till they can’t call their souls their own: them’s 
the kind that’s good to live in other folks’s families, ’n’ 
to go into the ministry; and they a’n’t good for noth- 
m’ else. I want to do what I’m a mind to, ’n’ I can’t 
be yoked up to other folks’s wants anyhow, leastw^^ys 
no more’n just for a spell, — say a dav or so. Also I 
must use my tongue, if I have to speak in meetin’. I’ve 


POLLY MAPvIKER, TAILORESS. 


211 


got to call a spade a spade, an’ a lie a lie; and you 
know that don’t allers sound savory; but it dooa 
appear better, a heap, in them that has house an’ land 
o’ their own, and a place to hide their sa'ssy heads in, 
than in them that’s allers under foot. Now, hain’t I 
got reason to roast my eggs by ? ” 

“I don’t deny that thee has reason, Polly. Thy 
talk sounds well-considered; but I am fearful that by 
and by thee may get to hanker after those family ties 
that seem burdensome to thee now. Thee knows the 
Scripture, ‘ It is not good for man to be alone,’ which, 
I think, meaneth not a man, but the whole humanity. 
It hath pleased the Lord to leave thee solitary in 
respect of relations ; but ‘ he setteth the solitary in 
families.’ ” 

“ Well I don’t feel to be sure that they’re other 
people’s families ; ’n’ if I ha’n’t got no relations, ’pears 
to me, ef you git to talkin’ about Providence, that it 
looks’s though I was kinder intended to be left by 
myself.” 

Eachel had to smile. The inherent dry sense of 
tiumor that seems to be the calyx of a Quakeress blos¬ 
som like this was tickled by Polly’s ingenious defence 
of her own will and way. 

“Well, thee must act by thy lights, Polly; and re¬ 
member thee has plenty of good friends if thee changes 
thy mind.” 

“ Thankey kindly. Miss Green. I guess I a’n’t like 
to forget you amongst ’em.” 

This was so much more sentiment than Polly often 
‘ndulged in, that she ret^'red behind the overalls, under 
pretence of some omitted overcasting, and only said 
“Good-by,” in a prim and grim way, when Friend 
Green departed. 


242 


somebody's neighbobs. 


Alas for the weakness of human nature ! No soonei 
had the little gate clicked to than down went those 
friendly overalls on the floor. 

“ I swan to man, it’s enough to crisp one’s eyelashes 
to have sech pesterin’ goin’ on all the time. Why, in 
the name o’ judgment, I can’t be left to do what I darn 
please, is musical to me. Anyhow, I guess I’ll do it, 
or I’ll know why an’ wherefore, as true’s my name’s 
Polly Mariner.” 

But Polly was troubled no more. On the contrary, 
aid and comfort came to her in the person of Isr’el 
Gmbb, no later than the next morning, when he thrust 
his grizzled head and shrewd wrinkled face into the 
back-door early. 

“Mornin’, Miss Polly! Say, Jehiel wants to know 
if them overhauls o’ his’n a’n’t nigh about done?” 

“ Why, yes, they be. I set the last stitch into ’em 
last night.” 

“AVell, Jehiel’s wife she wants you to come over 
there a spell next week and fix up her boys: school’s 
a-goin’ to keep next week.” 

“ Yes : I’ll go any time after Tuesday night.” 

“ I declare for’t! you’re real prompt. I do hate to 
see folks fiddlin’ round’s though they was so shif’less 
they didn’t know nothin’. Say, I heerd down to the 
«itore you giv Miss Platt an all-fired dressin’ when she 
?ome for to git you to go ’n’ live with her.” 

“Well, now, that’s a Taunton lie. I didn’t do no sech 
thing. First she pestered me, ’n’ then she sassed me ; 
’n’ what I said back didn’t no way square the bill, 
you’d better believe.” 

“ I don’t say but what I think you had the right on’t, 
ef you did,” pursued Isr’el, taking off his hat as if to 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


243 


find his rag of a handkerchief, and settling himself on 
the doorstep, where he resumed the hat after shaking 
and turning it round. “It allers seemed to me the 
foolishest thing a woman could do’t hadn’t got no folks, 
. to go ’ll’ take ’em on. Good land! did ever anybody 
see men-folks do sech a gawpin’ thing? I guess it ’ud 
look pooty to see old Granther Styles, or me, took into 
somebody’s house to do chores for notliin’. I don’t 
know as men-folks ginerally knows more’n wimmen 
’bout house an’ sich ; but they do know enough to work 
jest as long as bones an’ sinners [he meant sinews] ’ll 
hang together, ’n’ then go to the town-haouse ’thout 
makin’ no fuss.” 

“I guess there’s all kinds o’ folks in the world, 
Isr’el, ’n’ I’m glad I a’n’t one on ’em, as Miss Purkis 
used ter say; ’nd I do s’pose there’s some wimmen’s 
jest as good as some men, an’ some men jest as good- 
for-nothin’ as some wimmen.” 

“ Well, I guess there be. Naow, I calkerlate to dig 
your garden for ye next week; ’nd in case you want 
any thing o’ me dredful bad any time, you can jest put 
a white handkercher, or suthin’, in your keepin’-room 
winder, or a lamp, ef so be it’s night-time, ’n’ ef I or 
my folks sees it, we’ll be raonnd pootty spry, I tell 

ye." 

“ Well, I don’t know but what I will, though I guess 
I sha’n’t get skeered.” 

“ But ye might be sick. Folks is flesh an’ blood, if 
they be dredful mighty. I’ll tell Jehiel to come round 
for ye real early Wednesday.” 

Isr’el sauntered off; and on that next Wednesday 
began the public life and services of Mariner, 

tailoress. It needs a personal acquaintance with the 


244 


somebody’s neighbors. 


lonely and hard lives of New-England farmers, and 
more especially their wives, to fully comprehend bow 
Polly became at once a power in the land. She was a 
woman of strong character and great courage. Had 
she lived in these days, the very queens of the women’s, 
rights’ party would have been domineered over, out- 
scolded, and out-di'essed by her. She would not have 
stopped short of masculine garments in the adoption oi 
masculine privileges; for she had that rarest of femi¬ 
nine gifts, — except one, — a logical mind ; and, be¬ 
ginning at the end of a clew, would unwind it with 
precision and skill to the very end,.bitter or not, as it 
might be. But, happily for this generation, she lived 
in the last; and Fate, always intelligent and benign 
under its severest aspect, even when we hesitate to call 
it by its Christian name of Providence, compelled hex 
to a sphere where she did good less mingled with evil 
than it might have been in the unrestrained possession 
of pulpit, platform, and press. If Polly (forgive the 
misquotation) 

“ To a village gave up what was meant for mankind,” 

mankind and the village were both the better. She 
circulated among the solitary farmhouses far and near, 
like a racy newspaper, for one thing. She had a 
faculty, frequent in old maids, of having genealogies at 
ber tongue’s end. She knew who everybody’s grand¬ 
father’s first wife’s second-cousin married, and where 
elII their children had settled. All the children’s ages 
in every house were referred to her as final authority, 
if they chanced to have been left out of the family 
record She was infallible on pickles, sweetmeats, 

• jell, curing hams, and corning beef. Nobody made 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


245 


such soap, or such yeast. Hens that recalcitrated 
from their yearly duties quaked before her, and began 
to set under her ‘ ‘ methods ” as if nothing could please 
them better. She even knew how to eradicate smut 
from wheat, and cut potatoes for planting better than 
half the farmers. And as for news, not a mouse 
squeaked anywhere within her rounds but she coui^ 
and would tell the next cat of it. Judge what tireless 
gossip flowed from her vivacious tongue, and tickled the 
dull pool of many a household into ripples of laughter, 
regret, or astonishment, full of mental healing for 
those stagnant lives. 

Then Polly had another gift, equally beneflcent, if 
more poignant. She had the power and the will to tell 
truths, pleasant or unpleasant, in a manner that was as 
convincing as caustic; for the strong common sense 
that gave her insight its practical value weighted all 
her shafts, and sent them deep into the mark. * Nobody 
seemed to be much offended, or, if they were, they 
sulked a while and got over it; for Polly was as imper¬ 
vious to sullen looks or sharp words as a duck to rain, 
and she was too necessary to be lightly set aside. 
Poor Mr. Evarts, the minister who was once, for his 
sins, preaching as “ candidate” in Taunton, dated his 
disappointment there from the day a sewing-circle met 
at Deacon Griswold’s, and Polly “ freed her mind.” 

“ What do I think about him. Miss Gris’l’d? Well, 
I think he’s small pertaters, and few in a liill. I don’t 
hev no faith in a man’t gits up in a pulpit, an’ preaches 
away about flowers, ’n’ stars, ’n’ love, ’n’ crystal 
springs, ’n’ all that. A’n’t we sinners, ’n’ pretty bad 
ones too, at that? And what on airth did he expect 
to do when he set up to preach, ef ’twan’t to make 


246 


somebody’s neighbors. 


folks better? I don’t like to hear his posies no bet¬ 
ter’n I did to hear Parson Tinker allers thunderin’ 
damnation, and ’lection, an’ decrees. What I like’s to 
have him preach so’t the men-foiks’11 go home an’ try 
to behave better to their wives, an’ their children, an’ 
their helps; and the wimmen’ll stop frettin’ aod 
whinin’ and fault-findin, and sayin’ mean, stingin’ 
things to each other when they get vexed. Fact is, I 
want to get kinder licked smooth myself, ’nd git some 
patience drummed into me. I don’t want a snip lilvc 
that set up to hash verses, and reel ’em off, cos he’s 
paid to do sumthin’, an’ that’s all he can do. Sup¬ 
posin’ you was took dredful sick, ’n’ struck with death, 
and, naterally enough, your folks sent for the minister 
to come ’n’ see ye : what kind o’ use or comfort would 
this little peepin’ crittur be, a-talkin’ about harps, ’n’ 
angels, ’n’ sech? I tell ye. Miss Gris’l’d, a minister 
had ought to be a man, and a smart un’, and a good 
un’. Ef the Lord’s work’s wwth doin’, it’s worth 
doin’ well jest as much as your’n or mine is: thet’s 
what I think about it.” 

“Well, I don’t know but what ye’re in the right 
on’t, Polly. I don’t think husband reelly sets by him 
much.” 

“Husband” was duly regaled with Polly’s speech, 
after the feminine conclave had folded their work, and 
gone home to ])ed. 

“ Darn it all! ” said the deacon (“ darn ” is a harm¬ 
less expletive, even for deacons), bringing his right 
hand down on his knee with a forcible slap, ‘ ‘ Polly 
Mariner is a master-hand to speak in meetin’ as ever I 
uee. Them is jest my idees about the young man, 
l&ough I shouldn’t never ha’ ben so free-spoken afore 


POLLY MAPvINER, TAILORESS. 


247 


folks : ^twou’t do ! Folks had oughter hev more cau¬ 
tion, partikerly ef they’re deacons. I guess I sliall 
tell the brethren’t I don’t think brother Evarts is 
equivalent to our work. Ye see, he’s kinder feeble ; an* 
our congregation is dreadful scattered, ’n’ winter’s 
cornin’ on, ’n’ so. Thet’s all trew; an’ it won’t hurt 
his feelin’s none, and’ll fix it just right. But I swan 1 
do b’lieve Polly’d git into a real fix some day, speakiu* 
her mind.” 

“ Law, no, she won’t! ” said Mrs. Griswold, in the 
intervals of her vigorous setting the kitchen to rights 
at once. “There sot Miss Peters; ’nd she’s Parson 
Tinker’s fust-cousin, ’n’ she jest larfed. Nobody gits 
mad with Polly : ’tain’t no use. Why, I tried it once. 
Fact is, I was pipin’ mad when she come out about 
your ’stillin’ cider-brandy, ’n’ sellin’ it down to ^he 
corner; and I give it to her, I tell ye! But she sot 
there with her press-board, as composed as a clam, 
a-waitin till I got through; ’n’ then she sed, sez she, 

‘ What’s the use o’ gettin’ riled. Miss Gris’l’d? ’Tis so, 
a’n’t it? ’ Well, I couldn’t deny but what it was ; ’n’ 
then, come to think, I knew I better ha’ held my 
tongue; ’n’ Polly was a-lookin’ at me with them eyes 
o’ hern, jest like two gimlets, and she see I was coolin’ 
off. ‘ I sha’n’t never say nothin’ to nobody else about 
it,’ sez she, ‘now I’ve told ye, nor I sha’n’t to you. 
Miss Gris’l’d. I’ve cleared my conscience, ’n’ thet’s 
PS far as cuusarns me: so I guess we’ll kinder let it 
alone now.’ So I did. She was pootty near right, 
’n’ I never got mad with her sence. Fact is, besides, 
l^e’ve got three boys ; ’n’ they get through their coats 
*n’ things most amazin’ fast, and” — with which dis¬ 
joined conjunction Mrs. Griswold stopped, and took 
breath. " ^ 


248 


somebody’s neighboes. 


“Well, she is the beateree, no doubt on’t,’’ rejoined 
the deacon, picking up his boots, and going off to bed. 

So Mr. Evarts was not called to Taunton Street, but 
wended his way meekly to Mount Holyoke Seminary, 
married a well-recommended young person on five 
days’ acquaintance, and was forthwith shipped to the 
wilds of Southern Africa, there to learn, let us hope, 
though by deadly experience, what preaching the god' 
pel is, and what it is good for. 

Perhaps the only things that defied Polly’s common 
sense and experience were the love-affaii’s, that even in 
hard-working, unromantic Taunton, would spring up 
‘ ‘ even as a flower. ’ ’ The little god was no less capri¬ 
cious when properly “ clothed upon ” with good home- 
spun and flannel than in his classic costume of wings 
and bow. Alike in either garb, he snapped his pink 
and dimpled fingers at the crabbedness of reality and 
the warnings of sense. Blessed little apostle of un¬ 
reason ! What a world of solitude and tears we should 
have, if all the ineligibles were forsaken in their use¬ 
lessness, and only the good, sweet, prudent, and well- 
dowered people got married! Here was poor Louisa 
Platt, daughter of the aforesaid “Aunt Sary,” a tall, 
weedy, sallow girl, as became her mother’s daughter, 
yet with great eyes, whose dark splendor blazed be¬ 
neath clustering curls of equal darkness, and full red 
lips, capable of a sweetness as intense as their ordinary 
sullen droop. She had led, for all her eighteen years 
such a life as the sensitive daughter of a woman like 
Mrs. Platt must lead. Constantly fretted at, found 
fault with, shut in, as it were, in her narrow round of 
duty, which no tenderness, no sympathy, overflowed, 
vsfith a hungry heart and an active mind, no wonder 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


249 


tnat the first hand that offered her food was grasped at 
eagerly; no wonder, that, in her want and ignorance, 
she glorified into a hero almost too sublime for a hus¬ 
band Alonzo Sprague, clerk in the country store at 
the corner; a youth whose adorableness consisted 
chiefly in a great deal of hair-oil used on his light 
locks, an unlimited amount of simper, some fine lan¬ 
guage, weak good-temper, and tolerable manners. 
But he loved “Lowisy,’^ as Taunton pronunciation 
hath it, as much as he could love any thing but himself. 
Her unequal but unusual beauty, for beauty it was, 
once lighted up by fun or feeling, excited his admira¬ 
tion ; and her father’s reputed “ means ” enhanced the 
feeling to seriousness, that might otherwise have died 
out like a thousand other of his temporary loves. But 
to such a connection neither Mr. nor Mrs. Platt would 
give any countenance. 

“ Lowisy’s a fool, and you can clear out o’ my 
premises, ’Lonzo Sprague!” was the short and sharp 
dictum of the father; while aunt Sary overwhelmed 
Louisa with a persistent flow of tears, reproaches, 
taunts, sniffs, and a sort of mongrel ridicule that had 
in it no glitter of humor, or spark of fun, but was 
simply senseless chatter. And in the middle of these 
tirades entered Polly Mariner, shears and press-board 
in hand, come to repair the “ trouses ” of a small 
Platt; for time and necessity had long ago grown 
grass over her quarrel with aunt Sary; and, beside, 
the Platt boys wore out clothes particularly fast. 

‘‘Good-mornin’, Miss Platt! good-mornin’, Low- 
Isy i ” But the girl burst into a flood of passionate 
tears, welcome enough to her hot eyes and face, and 
tan out of the room, making no reply. 


250 


somebody’s neighboks. 


“ What kettle’s upset now? ” inquired Polly, making 
herself at home in a low chair, and turning her sharp 
nosf and sharper eyes toward Mrs. Platt. 

“Oh, dear!” (rocking violently) “ Lowisy’s jest 
the ongratefullest crittur in the univarse I Here’s her 
father an’ me been an’ gone an’ waited on her, and 
fetched her up, and done for her all her days ; ’n’ now 
jest as she’s a-gettin’ good for somethin’, she ups and 
takes a shine to that ninkum of a ’Lonzo Sprague, ’n’ 
wants to marry him, I hope! He’s a poor, mean, 
shiftless feller as ever stepped. He ha’n’t got the fust 
cent to call his own, an’ he never will hev; ’nd that 
girl wants to leave a good home, and me so dredful 
miserable, to go’n try her fortin’ with him I It’s jest 
my luck! ” 

“ Folks’s luck is generally their makin’,” dryly put 
in Polly. 

“ I wish’t you’d give her a piece o’ your mind, 
Polly : she don’t seem to set by what I say to her tlm 
least mite, and you’ve allers had a faculty at talkin’ 
folks over.” 

“ Well, I don’t know’s I hev got any partikler great 
faculty,” said the secretly-gratified Polly. “ I gener¬ 
ally tell folks the trewth: there’s some’11 take it in, 
an’ some won’t.” 

But before dinner she got a chance, not unaided oy 
Mrs. Platt, to tell Lowisy the truth, or rather fling it 
at her, stone fashion. 

“So, Lowisy, I hear tell you’ve been a-takin’ up 
with ’Lonzo Sprague down to the corners? ” 

No answer. 

“ I should ha’ thought you could ha’ done better’n 
tliat! He’s a real shiftless feller, jest like his fathei 


POLLY MARINER, TAELORESS. 


251 


afore him, and his grandfather afore that. I’ve alters 
noticed that shiftlessness runs in families pretty much 
like scrofooly, ’nd I tell you there a’n’t no harder row 
to hoe than a woman’s got that’s got a shif’less hus¬ 
band. She ha’n’t, so to speak, got nobody. Fact is, 
I’d ruther have a real sperrity man, ef he was real 
ambitious, than one that didn’t never fix up, nor pro¬ 
vide, nor fiy round real spry, at least.” 

“ What sort of a husband was yours, Miss Polly? ’* 
interpolated Louisa, inspired by feminine instinct. But 
Polly was arrow-proof, and put this little shaft aside. 

“ That ha’n’t nothin’ to do with it. I’ve got eyes 
’nd I’ve used ’em; an’ I’ve seen consider’ble many 
folks, both married an’ single, sence I was born, and I 
know what I’m tollin’ ye. You’d’better think twice 
on’t: you hev to lie on a hard bed ef you make it; ’n’ 
when you’re once tied up to him, you can’t noway get 
away, that’s the worst on’t: there you be, an’ there 
you’ll hev to be; an’ you may kick the breechin’ to 
bits, ’nd break the bridle; but ’twon’t be no good, 
the lines’ll hold ye.” 

This, as we have said, was forty years ago, before 
Connecticut made it even an easier matter to break the 
marriage-tie than to form it. 

“I don’t care a mite, there!” burst in Louisa. 
“ If I want to marry a man that a’n’t wicked, nobody’s 
got any right to say I sha’n’t, anyway!” ante-dating 
the later axiom of our New-England philosopher, that 
“ the soul has inalienable rights, and the first of these 
is love, ” in a more lucid and practical form. 

“ Mighty Cesai! ” ejaculated Polly, “ ef you a’n’t 
a highflyer, Lowisy Platt! Ha’n’t lost your senses, hev 


252 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“Guess I’ve got what’ll keep me alive,” said the 
girl, her whole face settling down into a sullen resolu¬ 
tion that seemed to make Polly Mariner’s curls crisp 
with fresh vigor as she pierced her with the penetrative 
eyes beneath them. 

“Well,” said the astonished tailoress, drawing a 
long breath ; and that was all she said. Here was one 
thing that surpassed her comprehension. Never in all 
the long years of her life had that organ popularly 
supposed to be the heart given within her one unrea¬ 
sonable flutter; no delicious folly had ever kissed her 
eyelids down, no fire of passion ever kindled its resist¬ 
less blaze in her respectable bosom. She had but a 
spare gift of the gentler affections; and here, flung in 
her very face like-a hen defending her brood, was an 
inexcusable foolishness that regarded nothing beyond 
the insatiable hunger of the moment. Here was a soul 
parched with mortal thirst, intent on slaking it from 
the first woodside puddle; and Polly had never been 
thirsty — how could she understand it ? For once her 
spells had failed. Truth itself is powerless against love ; 
and so Louisa Platt and her simpering lover made a 
flitting over the State line, happily not far off, the flrst 
moonlight night, and, being married in Massachusetts, 
came home to Taunton, and settled down to reality. 

Whether in her future life, when the little frame¬ 
house swarmed with puny children, and Alonzo devel¬ 
oped the hereditary talent he possessed, and she burned 
with the fever of frequent headaches, and writhed v ith 
the torture of a lame back, in her hard but inevitable 
labor, Lowisy ever wished in her secret heart that she 
had been wiser and calmer, or even at the last moment 
taken Polly’s advice, T do not know and cannot tell: 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


253 


but one thing I do know, that Polly lost no opportunity 
to say, “ I told you so,** either in word or act, or by 
significant words and sniffs that added fresh thorns to 
poor Lowisy*s. burden, already rasping enough. 

Partly the wise woman did this from the natural 
instinct of humanity, partly to vindicate her own 
superior wisdom, and partly because, as the cynical 
Frenchman said, “there is something pleasant in the 
misfortunes of our best friends,**—particularly when 
we have told them so. 

But, notwithstanding this one failure of method, 
].^olly*s life went on with its wonted usefulness and 
fearlessness, year after year, though, be it observed, 
she never again meddled with a love-affair, observing 
once, with a sniff of defiance and contempt, “Them 
that meddles with fools gets a fool’s-cap for their 
pains,** apropos of somebody else’s folly quite as bad 
as Lowisy’s. 

Yet as the years rolled on, and brought Polly Mari¬ 
ner to the goodly age of fifty, she met with one of 
those signal discomfitures that now and then befall 
both the best and the wisest, — oftener, perhaps, befall 
women than men, by reason of that lack of poise, of 
caution, of far-seeing, that is characteristic of the 
feminine mind. Strange enough it was that Polly, 
who had so successfully engineered the affairs of other 
people so long, should at last make a fatal and ludi¬ 
crous blunder in her own; but it was, after all, the 
gradual result of a process like that which loosens and 
disintegrates the base of a granite bowlder, and sends it 
slipping with still accelerated impetus down the grassy 
slope where it has reposed so long. In fact, Polly was 
an illustration of that great law, “ the eternal fitness of 


254 


somebody’s neighbors. 


things,” in the result of its infraction. In spite of her 
strength, her courage, her self-assertion, her rage for 
independence, she was, after all, a woman; and she is 
not a woman, but an anomaly, if not a monster, who 
can wear out a long life of social solitude with no 
quiver of failing resolution, no sinking of heart. To 
be a woman without a home, without a family where 
she is at least dear and necessary, if not supreme, is to 
be a dweller in the desert, lost and famished; if not 
in the bright days of youth and strength, yet at least 
when the feebler pulses and the more faithful heart 
demand help and consolation against the desolation of 
age and the hour of death. And slowly, as time laid 
one finger after another on her life ; as her eyes became 
dim, none the less that she brandished her new specta¬ 
cles defiantly before everybody, as if they had been 
an ornament instead of a necessary aid ; as she began 
to find her active limbs stiffen with every winter’s frost, 
and her quick ears lose their acuteness of hearing; 
when it grew a weariness and a burden to go home to 
her own solitary house at night, unlock the door, kindle 
the fire, and sit down beside it, tired and depressed, 
with not even a cat to purr under her hand, — Polly 
began, no doubt, to feel what Rachel Green had said 
to her long before, that it is not good for man to be 
alone, nor woman either. 

Now there lived on Taunton Hill, on a road running 
at right angles from the street, a certain elderly man, 
long time a widower, whose name was Timothy Bunce. 
He was not a favorite in the village, being somewhat 
simple in mind, but crabbed in manner: not that he 
really was cross-grained; but he was weak, and knew 
it, and defended himself with such weapons as he had 


POLLY MAEINER, TAILOPvESS. 


255 


against his craftier and stronger brethren. But he 
had a good farm, and money in the hank, and every 
thing comfortable about him ; his cows were sleek, and 
his fowls abundant; his crops always fair, if not re¬ 
markable. And to a stranger it seemed odd enough 
that no woman had stormed his castle, and taken pos¬ 
session of him and his long ago. But, beside Timothy 
Bunco’s weakness and snappishness, there was one 
thing that separate^ him yet more widely from the 
Taunton people: he was an Episcopalian. He was 
not born or “raised” in Taunton, where everybody 
that could go anywhere went duly to the big white 
meeting-house, and took in pure Calvinism with un¬ 
questioning simplicity. He had gone from a neighbor¬ 
ing village to the city early in life, and there fallen 
into what Taunton held to be the wrong religion and 
wrong politics. And when he had amassed some 
money, at the age of forty, he bought this farm on the 
hill, and took up his abode there, religion, politics, 
and all, clinging to his old ideas simply because he had 
not wish or will to change them. 

He had always had a niece to keep house with him; 
but, a few weeks before he fell into collision with Polly, 
the niece had died, and left him in a peculiarly helpless 
and friendless condition, which was fully discussed in 
and about Taunton, not only as to its present wants, 
but their prospective supply. But nobody seemed to 
suggest just the right thing: in fact, nobody thought 
of Polly as a person attainable to fill Mary Ann Bunco’s 
place. She was altogether too important to the town. 
But in Polly’s mind there was a certain stir of expecta¬ 
tion, a balancing of probabilities, an appraisement, as 
it were, of what was and what might be, that prepared 


256 


somebody’s neighbors. 


her to receive a call from Mr. Bunce with a propej 
degree of composure, and to show no signs of its 
unexpectedness. 

It was late Sunday afternoon ; and Polly sat by the 
open door of her clean kitchen, rocking placidly. All 
her belongings were as spotless and orderly as ever. 
She herself looked, in her Sunday gown of black silk, 
something softer than usual. Age had not changed her, 
except to a kindlier aspect; a little threading of silver 
in the black curls, less fire in the blacker eyes, less 
snap and crackle in her movements and her voice : yes, 
Polly was really mitigated; and when she said to Tim 
Bunee, “ Set down, set down, Mr. Bunce, take this 
cheer,” there was something almost like suavity in her 
tones. 

Timothy sat down. He was a little man, and in 
bodily presence contemptible enough. His narrow face, 
wandering blue eyes, sleek and scanty light hair, the 
very crack in his voice, bespoke him a weak brother. 
And yet he cc^nsidered himself able to control and 
direct any woman on earth, regarding them as inferior 
creatures, useful about a house, as others have done 
before him. But Polly’s aspect, exceptionally subdued 
as it was when he encountered it alone, rather daunted 
him. He began to stroke his hair nervously, to roll 
his eyes about like a timid rabbit, to clear his throat, 
and fidget on his chair, — symptoms which Polly 
regarded with a critical eye, and judged favorable. 

“Well’m, Miss Polly,” at last he stammered, 
“ pretty good weather for corn.” 

“'Welh yes ’tis, dredful growthy kind o’ weathei 
for most any thing: garden sass seems to be partilrer 
lerly favored this year.” 


POLLY MARLN^EE, TAILORESS. 


257 


“Doos, doos it? I should think so by the look o’ 
yourn. Quite a hand with a garden you be, I guess.” 

“Well, I don’t know. Some hes faculty, an’ some 
hesn’t.” 

“Mary Ann she was a masterpiece of a gardener. 
I don’t reelly know how to git along without her.” 

“ It was quite an affliction for ye. I should think’t 
you’d miss her a heap.” 

“ I do, reeUy now: I miss her consider’ble. Seems 
as though I couldn’t get along no longer ’thout some¬ 
body.” Here Timothy happened to look sidewise, and 
caught those black eyes fixed upon him with unwinking 
sternness, and his own rolled fearfully: the ground 
seemed uncertain under his feet. He was scared ; but 
he went on, “Fact is, I don’t feel as though I could 
stan’ much more on’t. Mary Ann she’d lived to our 
house a spell along back afore Miss Bunce died, so’t 
she staid right along ’n’ did for me, ’nd I didn’t feel so 
kinder lost without Miss Bunce as I should hev other¬ 
wise ; but now I do, I tell ye. And I’ve heered a lot 
about how dredful smart you be, and knowin’ ; and I 
stepped over to see ef mebbe you’d take her place.” 
(O Timothy, Timothy! your last proper noun was 
“ Miss Bimce;” and Polly knew it, though you 
didn’t.) “ I’d fix up the haouse ’nd I’d ” — 

Polly never let a driven nail go unclinched. Some 
vague instinct of femininity made her drop her eyes, 
but she spoKe. “I d’clare for’t! Mr. Bunce, you 
Jiev took me clean by surprise. I hadn’t never thought 
changin’ my condition ” — 

“ Oh I ” gasped Timothy, turning red and blue: but 
she did not hear or see him. 

“ But seein’ you’re so kind, and your lonesomeness, 


‘258 


somebody’s neighboes. 


‘nd all, I don’t know but what I’d as lives merry you 
as the next one.” 

“ 0-h! ” gasped Timothy again ; “oh, dear 1 I — 
I —I didn’t, o-h!” 

“Why, suthin’ ails ye, don’t there? ’Pears as ef 
you was overcome : ’tis kind of a tryin’ time. Won’t 
ye hev some peppermint?” 

Timothy ^at with both hands on his knees, convulsed 
with rage and terror. Perhaps she would marry him 
then and there, in spite of him, and carry him home 
in triumph; and his dry tongue refused more words. 

“Now, do hev some, or smell to the camphire. 
Time you had a wife to look after ye. I understand 
fits real well.” 

“ O—h ! ” shrieked Timothy, rising to his tottering 
feet in fresh toy that loosed his speech. “I didn’t! 
I don’t 1 I a’n’t a-goin’ to. I didn’t say nothin’ 
about marryin’. I won’t, I don’t want to.” 

Polly was purple herself now; her eyes snapped like 
'sparks, her nose went up higher yet in the air, her chin 
quivered, the very curls on her head seemed to bristle. 
She was a spectacle of terror to Timothy, who literally 
shook in his shoes. 

“Well, I should think! You pitiful little rat, ’t 
can’t hardly squeak in your own barn, a-comin’ round 
me, a respectable woman, to make me your music! 
Fust a-askin’ of me plain as a pikestaff to marry ye, 
’nd then a-backin’ out on’t right off! You’re the 
meanest critter the Lord ever made, ’nd I guess you 
was made out o’ the bits ’nd ends that was left. I 
wouldn’t pick ye out o’ the dirt with the tongs ! ” 

I didn’t, I didn’t; oh! I didn’t. I never thought 
on't. I don’t want to.” 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


259 


“ Now go to lyin’, will ye? ” ejaculated Polly, calm 
with excess of anger, like a buzz-saw, and equally 
dangerous. “Hain’t I got ears? ’nd didn’t I hear 
ye ask me to take Miss Bunce’s place jest as plain as 
the nose on your little sneakin’ face, that’s most ail 
nose? ” 

“ Oh, I didn’t! ” reiterated the abject and thoroughly 
terrified Timothy. “ I didn’t! I never! I said Mary 
Ann.” 

“Well, keep on a-lyin’, do! I might ha’ know’d 
there wan’t no good in ye, —nothin’ but a ’Piscopalian 
anyhow I Don’t know enough to say your own prayers. 
What the Lord above made ’Piscopalians and muskee- 
ters for I don’t know, ’xcept to keep up an everlastin’ 
buzz : they hain’t nyther on ’em got souls thet’s worth 
savin’, nor bodies enough to hold ’em if they hed. 
Come!” Polly advanced in wrath. “Clear out o’ 
my house! Quit, afore I ketch ye by the back o’ your 
neck, ’nd drop ye out o’ the window. Clear, I say! ” 

A whole troop could not have alarmed the luckless 
Timothy more. Snatching up his hat from the floor, he 
fled, ejaculating as he went, in broken accents, — 

“ O Lord ! Oh, my! Good Lord, deliver us from all 
— Oh, darn this gate ! Thunder — oh,” far into the 
distance, finding, poor fellow, nowhere in the Litany, 
which involuntarily sprung to his lips, a petition for 
deliverance from furies or old maids. 

Polly sank inio ner chair, breathless. For a while 
the excitement of rage supported her, then came the 
fitter after-taste of mortification and disappointment. 
As she sat in her door, the melancholy range of bare 
hills that lay before her sent unawares a chill into her 
ueart. Polly was not ordinarily sensitive to Nature r 


260 


somebody’s neighbors. 


but Nature, like air and love, acts upon us without our 
consciousness or connivance; and the sad peace of 
those rolling summits, the plaintive quiet that settled 
round closing day, all the solitary depths of the sum¬ 
mer sky, untroubled with one spark as yet, seemed to 
close about the exasperated and lonely woman like the 
walls of a cloister, and sink deeper into her soul the 
conviction that for her there was no centre, no home. 
It may do for men to live their own lives, and die alone, 
with the courage or the stoicism that is their birthright, 
but not for women. The strongest, the best, the most 
audaciously independent of us, will be conscious, as 
age assaults us, of our weakness and helplessness, — 
bitterly conscious if we are solitary. 

Polly’s mood of regret and bitterness was new to 
her, and exquisitely painful; but at last she roused her¬ 
self from it, growling, as she went about her work for 
the night, — 

“ Well, he was a fool, that’s a fact, ’nd I was con¬ 
sider’ble of one myself; but I skeered him mightily, 
anyhow.” 

Neither of the parties cared to tell the tale of their 
mutual discomfiture. But Timothy sold his farm, and 
removed to the wilds of Vermont, haunted by the fear 
of Polly Mariner; and people noticed, as years passed, 
that Polly grew less and less aggressive, even more 
friendly. She spared and pinched and saved, till 
there was enough laid up in the Folland Bank to give 
her rest in her last days ; but rest she could not take. 
Action was the breath of her existence; and, happily 
for her, a sharp and brief fever ended her long and 
busy life: a decline would have tortured her both ia 
her own incapacity and that of any available help 


POLLY MARINER, TAILORESS. 


261 


But for a few days of delirium and unconsciousness 
there was resource enough in neighborly kindness ; and 
Rachel Green, herself lingering on the verge of her 
days, but sweeter and gentler than ever, came and 
staid to superintend the nursing she was unable to do ; 
while “Aunt Hanner Bliss,” the only professional 
nurse for miles about, was sent for, and installed as the 
doctor’s aid, and at times substitute, since a country 
doctor must needs be “here and there and every¬ 
where.” 

At last, worn with the cruel violence of fever, Polly 
woke from her delirium weaker than a child, but clear¬ 
headed as ever: her eyes fell first on Rachel Green’s 
calm face, where the very peace of heaven seemed 
almost dawning. 

“Well, Miss Green, I’m a dredful sick woman, I 
guese.” 

‘•Tbe#» has had a severe fever, Polly, and it is not 
over yej.” 

There was something ominous in the sad tenderness 
of the old lady’s voice, that struck Polly: a strange 
look passed over her countenance as this shock of an 
untried and awful experience stared her inevitably in 
the face; and her voice was even feebler and more 
quivering when she spoke again. 

“ Struck with death I be, a’n’t I? ” 

“Thee is almost home, Polly,” softly replied 
Rachel. 

“ Home ? ” said she vaguely! “ oh, dear! ” and then, 
rousing herself, “I hain’t never had a home. Miss 
Green, do you rek’lect what you sed to me quite a 
number of years ago? Well, I’d ha’ done better ef I’d 
ha’ done j^our way. ’Tain’t more’n honest to tell ye 


262 


somebody’s neighbors. 


I’ve hankered after a home ’n’ folks o’ my own many 
a time since; but I wouldn’t tell on’t: ’nd now I’m 
a-dyin’, so to speak, by myself — or I should, ef 
’twa’n’t for you.” 

“Anyhow,” said Aunt Hanner, with the skill and 
experience of one of those Spanish nurses who thrust 
their elbows into the stomachs of the dying to shorten 
their agonies, — “anyhow, ef you hain’t got nobody 
to cry for you, you hain’t got nobody to cry for, ’nd 
you’ve bed your way.” 

“Folks’s way is worse’n the want on’t,” whispered 
Polly. They were her last words. The death-mist 
passed, and settled upon her sunken features, as Rachel 
Green stooped over her, saying low and clear, — 

“‘As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I 
comfort you,’ saith the Lord of hosts.” 

Two tears, the first and last that mortal ever saw her 
shed, stole gently out of Polly’s closed eyelids: she 
smiled — and died. 


UNCLE JOSH. 


Josh Crane was a Yankee bom and bred, a farmei 
on Plainfield Hill, and a specimen. If some strange 
phrases were grafted on his New-England vernacular, 
it was because, for fifteen years of his youth, he had 
followed the sea; and the sea, to return the compli¬ 
ment, thereafter followed him. 

His father, old Josh Crane, kept the Sanbury grist¬ 
mill, and was a drunken, shiftless old creature, who 
ended his days in a tumble-down red house a mile below 
Plainfield Centre, being “took with the tremens,’* as 
black Peter said when he came for the doctor, — all too 
late ; for the “ tremens ” had indeed taken him off. 

Mrs. Crane, our Josh’s mother, was one of those 
calm, meek, patient creatures, by some inscrutable 
mystery always linked to such men ; “ martyrs by the 
pang without the palm,” of whom a noble army shall 
yet rise out of New England’s desolate valleys and 
melancholy hills to take their honor from the Master’s 
hand. For years this woman lived alone with her 
child in the shattered red house, spinning, knitting, 
washing, sewing, scrubbing, to earn bread and water, 
sometimes charity-fed, but never failing at morning 
and night, with one red and knotted hand upon her 
boy’s white hair, and the other on her worn Bible, to 
pray, with an intensity that boy never forgot, for his 

263 


264 


somebody’s neighboes. 


well-being for ever and ever: for herself she never 
prayed aloud. 

Then came the country’s pestilence, consumption; 
and after long struggles, relapses, rallies, — all received 
in the same calm patience, — Hetty Crane died in a 
summer’s night, her little boy asleep ‘ beside her, and 
a whippoorwill on the apple-tree by the door sounding 
on her flickering sense the last minor note of life. 

When Josh woke up, and knew his mother was dead, 
he did not behave in the least like good little boys in 
books, but dressed himself without a tear or a sob, and 
ran for the nearest neighbor. 

“ Sakes alive!” said “Miss” Ranney. “I never 
did see sech a cretur as that are boy in all my days! 
He never said nothin’ to me when he came to our 
folks’s, only jest, ‘ Miss Ranney, I guess you’d better 
come cross lots to see mother: she don’t seem to be 
alive.” — “Dew tell!” sez I. An’ so I slipt on my 
Shaker bunnet jist as quick’s I could ; but he was off, 
spry’s a cricket, an’ when I got there he was a-settin’ 
the room to rights. He’d spunked up a fire, and hung 
on the kittle : so I sed nothin’, but stept along inter the 
bedroom, and turned down the kiver, and gin a little 
screech, I was so beat; for, sure enough, Hetty Crane 
was dead an’ cold. Josh he heerd me, for he was 
clos’t onto me; and he never spoke, but he come up 
to the bed, and he put his head down, and laid his cheek 
right along hers (and ’twan’t no redder’n her’n), an’ 
staid so ’bout a minnit; then he cleared out, and I 
never see him no more all day. But Miss Good’in she 
come in; and she said he’d stopped there, an’ sent 
her over. 

“Well, we laid out Hetty, and fixed up the house, 


UNCLE JOSH. 


265 


and put up a curtain to her winder. -And Miss Good’in 
she ’n’ I calkerlated to set up all night; and we was 
jest puttin’ a mess of tea to draw, so’s to keep lively, 
when in come Josh, drippin’ wet; for the dews was 
dreadful heavy them August nights. And he said 
nothin’ more’n jest to answer when he was spoke to. 
And Miss Good’in was a real feelin’ woman: she 
guessed he’d better be let alone. So he drink’t a cup 
of tea, and then he started off into the bedroom; and 
when she went in there, ’long towards midnight, there 
he was, fast asleep on the bed beside of the corpse, as 
straight as a pin, only holdin’ on to one of its hands. 
Miss Good’in come back ciyin’ ; and I thought I 
should ’a’ boo-hooed right out. But I kinder strangled 
it down, and we set to work to figger out what was 
a-goin’ to be done with the poor little chap. That 
house of their’n that old Josh had bought of Mr. 
Ranney hadn’t never been paid for, only the interest- 
money whenever Miss Crane could scrape it up, so’t 
that would go right back into husband’s hands; an’ 
they hadn’t got no cow, nor no pig ; and we agreed the 
s’lectmen would hev’ to take him, and bind him out. 

“I allers mistrusted that he’d waked up, and heerd 
what we said ; for next morning, when we went to call 
nim, he was gone, and his shirts an’ go-to-meetin s 
too; and he never come back to the funeral, nor a 
good spell after. 

“ I know, after Hetty was buried, and we’d resolved 
to sell what things she had to get her a head-stone, — 
for Mr. Ranney wouldn’t never put in for the rest of his 
mterest money, — I took home her old Bible, and kep’ 
it for Josh; and the next time I see him was five and 
twenty years afte*', when he come back from sea-farin’, 


2G6 


somebody’s neighbors. 


au’ settled down to farmin’ on’t. And he sot by that 
Bible a dredful sight, I expect: for he gin our Sail the 
brightest red-an’-yeller bandanner j^ou ever see; she 
used to keep it to take to meetin’.” 

“ Miss ” Ranney was certainly right in her “ guess.” 
Josh had heard in that miserable midnight the discus¬ 
sion of his future, and, having a well-founded dread 
of the selectmen’s tender-mercies, had given a last 
caress to his dead mother, and run away to Boston, 
where he shipped for a whaling-voyage; was cast 
away on the Newfoundland shore after ten years of 
sea-life; and being at that time a stout youth of 
twenty, sick of his seamanship, he had hired himself to 
work in a stone-yard; and, by the time he was thirty- 
five, had laid up enough money to return a thrifty 
bachelor, and, buying a little farm on Plainfield Hill, 
settle down to his ideal of life, and become the amuse¬ 
ment of part of the village, and the oracle of the rest. 

We boys adored Uncle Josh; for he was always 
ready to rig our boats, spin us yarns a week long, and 
fill our pockets with apples red and russet as his own 
honest face. With the belles of the village Uncle 
Josh had no such favor. He would wear a pigtail, in 
spite of scoff and remonstrance; he would smoke a 
cutty-pipe; and he did swear like a sailor, from mere 
habit and forgetfulness, for no man not professedly 
religious had a diviner instinct of reverence and wor¬ 
ship than he. But it was as instinctive in him to swear 
as it was to breathe; and some of our boldly specula¬ 
tive and law^despising youngsters held that it was no 
harm in him, any more than “ gosh ” and “ thunder ” 
were in us, for really he meant no more. 

However, Uncle Josh did not quite reciprocate the 


UNCLE JOSH. 


207 


contempt of the sex. Before long he began to make 
Sunday-night visitations at Deacon Stone’s, to “brush 
his hat o’ mornings,” to step spry, and wear a stiff 
collar and stock, instead of the open tie he had kept, 
with the pigtail, long after jacket and tarpaulin had 
been dismissed the service : so the village directly dis¬ 
covered that Josh Crane was courting the school-mis¬ 
tress, “ Miss Eunice,” who boarded at Deacon Stone’s. 
What Miss Eunice’s surname might be, I never knew; 
nor did it much matter. She was the most kindly, 
timid, and lovable creature that ever tried to reduce a 
district school into manners and arithmetic. She lives 
in my memory still, — a tall, slight figure, with tender 
brown eyes and a sad face, its broad, lovely forehead 
shaded with silky light hair, and her dress always dim- 
tinted, — faded perhaps, — but scrupulously neat and 
stable. 

Everybody knew why Miss Eunice looked so meekly 
sad, and why she was still “Miss” Eunice: she had 
been “ disapp’inted.” She had loved a man better 
than he loved her, and therein, copying the sweet 
angels, made a fatal mistake, broke her girl’s heart, 
and went to keeping school for a living. 

All the young people pitied and patronized her; all 
the old women agreed that she was ‘ ‘ a real clever little 
fool; ” and men regarded her with a species of wonder 
and curiosity, first for having a breakable heart, and 
pext for putting that member to fatal harm for one 
pf their kind. But boys ranked Miss Eunice even 
above Uncle Josh; for there lives in boys a certain 
kind of chivalry, before the world has sneered it out of 
them, that regards a sad or injured woman as a crea¬ 
ture claiming all their care and protection. And it was 


268 


somebody’s neighbobs. 


with a thrill of virtuous indignation that we heard 
of Josh Crane’s intentions toward Miss Eunice; nor 
were we very pitiful of our old friend, when Mrs. 
Stone announced to old Mrs. Eanney (who was deaf 
8S a post, and therefore very useful, passively, in 
spreading news confided to her, as this was in the 
church-porch), that “Miss Eunice wa’n’t a-goin’ to 
Lev’ Josh Crane, ’cause he wa’n’t a professor; but 
she didn’t want nobody to tell on’t:” so everybody 
did. 

It was, beside, true. Miss Eunice was a sincerely 
religious woman ; and though Josh Crane’s simple, fer¬ 
vent love-making had stirred a thrill within her she 
had thought quite impossible, still she did not think it 
was right to marry an irreligious man, and she told 
him so with a meek firmness that quite broke down 
poor Uncle Josh, and he went back to his farming with 
profounder respect than ever for Miss Eunice, and a 
miserable opinion of himself. 

But he was a person without guile of any sort. He 
would have cut off his pigtail, sold his tobacco-keg, 
tried not to swear, for her sake ; but he could not pre¬ 
tend to be pious, and he did not. 

A year or two afterward, however, when both had 
quite got past the shyness of meeting, and set aside, if 
not forgotten, the past, there was a revival of religion 
in Plainfield; no great excitement, but a quiet spring- 
ing-up of “good seed” sown in past generations, it 
may be ; and among the softened hearts and moist eyes 
were those of Uncle Josh. His mother’s prayers 
had slept in the leaves of his mother’s Bible, and now 
they awoke to be answered. 

It was strangely touching, even to old Parson Pitche** 


UNCLE JOSH. 


269 


long used to such interviews with the oddest of all peo¬ 
ple under excitement, —rugged New-Englanders, — to 
see the simple pathos that vivified Uncle Josh’s story 
of his experience ; and when, in the midst of a sentence 
about his dead mother, and her petitions for his safety, 
with tears dripping down both cheeks, he burst into a 
halielujah metre tune, adapting the words, — 

“ Though seed lie buried long in dust,’’ &c., 

and adding to the diversity of rhythm the discordance 
of his sea-cracked voice, it was a doubtful matter to 
Parson Pitcher whether he should laugh or cry; and 
he was forced to compromise with a hysterical snort, 
just as Josh brought out the last word of the verse on 
a powerful fugue, — 

“ Cro-o-o*o-op! ” 

So earnest and honest was he, that, for a whole week 
after he had been examined and approved by the 
church committee as a probationer, he never once 
thought of Miss Eunice; when suddenly, as he was 
reading his Bible, and came across the honorable men¬ 
tion of that name by the apostle, he recollected, with a 
sort of shamefaced delight, that now, perhaps, she 
woiiia have him. So, with no further ceremony than 
reducing his gusty flax-colored hair to order by means 
of a pocket-comb, and washing his hands at the pump, 
away he strode to the schoolhouse, where it was Miss 
Eunice’s custom to linger after school till her fire was 
burnt low enough to “ rake up.” 

Josh looked in at the window as he “ biought to” 
(in his own phrase) “alongside the school’us,” and 
there sat the lady of his love knitting a blue stocking, 
with an empty chair most propitiously placed beside 


270 


somebody’s neighbors. 


her in front of the fireplace. Josh’s heart rose up 
mightily; but he knocked as little a knock as his great 
Imuckles could effect, was bidden in, and sat himself 
down on the chair in a paroxysm of bashfulness, 
nowise helped by Miss Eunice’s dropped eyes and per¬ 
sistent knitting. So he sat full fifteen minutes, every 
now and then clearing his throat in a vain attempt to 
introduce the point, till at length, desperate enough, 
he made a dash into the middle of things, and bubbled 
over with, “Miss Eunice, I’ve got religion! I’m sot 
out for to be a real pious man. Can’t you feel to 
hev’ me now? ” 

What Miss Eunice’s little trembling lips answered, 
I cannot say: but I know it was satisfactory to Josh; 
for his first reverent impulse, after he gathered up her 
low words, was to clasp his hands, and say, “Amen,” 
as if somebody had asked a blessing. Perhaps he felt 
he had received one in Miss Eunice. 

When spring came they were married, and were 
happy, Yankee fashion, without comment or demon¬ 
stration, but very happy. Uncle Josh united with the 
church, and was no disgrace to his profession save 
and except in one thing, — he would swear. Vainly 
did deacons, brethren, and pastor assail him with 
exhortation, remonstrance, and advice; vainly did his 
meek wife look at him with pleading eyes ; vainly did 
he himself repent and strive and watch: “the stump 
of Dagon remained,” and was not to be easily up¬ 
rooted. 

At length Parson Pitcher, being greatly scandalized 
at Josh’s expletives, used unluckily in a somewhat 
excited meeting on church business (for in prayer- 
meetings he never answered any calls to rise, lest habit 


UNCLE JOSH. 


271 


should get the better of him, and shock the very sin¬ 
ners he might exhort),—Parson Pitcher himself made a 
pastoral call at the farm, and found its master in the 
garden, hoeing corn manfully. 

“ Good-day, Mr. Crane ! ” said the old gentleman. 

“Good-day, Parson Pitcher, good-day! d- hot 

day, sir,*’ answered the unconscious Josh. 

“ Not so hot as hell for swearers,” sternly responded 
the parson, who, being of a family renowned in New 
England for noway mincing matters, sometimes verged 
upon profanity himself, though unawares. Josh threw 
down his hoe in despair. 

“ O Lord 1 ” said he. “ There it goes again, I swear! 

the d- dogs take it! If I don’t keep a-goin’! O 

Parson Pitcher! what shall I dew ? It swears of itself. 

I am clean beat tryin’ to head it off. Con- no! I 

mean confuse it all! I’m such an old hand at the 
wheel, sir 1 ” 

Luckily for Josh, the parson’s risibles were hardly 
better in hand than his own profanity; and it took him 
now a long time to pick up his cane, which he had 
dropped in the currant-bushes, while Joe stood among 
the corn-hills wiping the sweat off his brow, in an 
abject state of penitence and humility; and, as the 
parson emerged like a full moon from the leafy cur¬ 
rants, he felt more charitably toward Josh than he had 
done before. “It is a very bad thing, Mr. Crane,” 
said he mildly, — “not merely for yourself; but it 
scandalizes the church-members, and I think you should 
take severe measures to break up the habit.” 

“ What upon arth shall I do, sir? ” piteously asked 
Josh : it’s the d—dest plague ! Oh ! I swan to man I’ve 
done it agin 1 ” 





272 


somebody’s neighbors. 


And here, with a long howl, Josh threw himself 
down in the weeds, and kicked out like a half-broken 
colt, wishing in his soul the earth would hide him, and 
trying to feel as bad as he ought to; for his honest 
conscience sturdily refused to convict him in this mat¬ 
ter, faithful as it was in much less-sounding sins. 

I grieve to say that Parson Pitcher got behind an 
apple-tree, and there — cried perhaps; for he was 
wiping his eyes, and shaking all over, when he walked 
off; and Josh, getting up considerably in a state of 
dust, if not ashes and sackcloth, looked sheepishly 
about for his reprover, but he was gone. 

Parson Pitcher convened the deacons and a few of 
the uneasy brethren that night in his study, and ex¬ 
pounded to them the duty of charity for people who 
would sleep in meeting, had to drink bitters for their 
stomachs’ sake, never came to missionary meetings 
for fear of the contribution-box, or swore without 
knowing it; and as Deacon Stone did now and then 
snore under the pulpit, and broth(^r Eldridge had a 
‘ ‘ rheumatiz ’ ’ that nothing but chokeberry-rum would 
cure, and that is very apt to affect the head, and 
brother Peters had so firm a conviction that money is 
the root of all evil, that he kept his from spreading, 
they all agreed to have patience with brother Crane’s 
tongue-ill; and Parson ^Pitcher smiled as he shut the 
door behind them, thinking of that first stone that no 
elder nor ruler could throw. 

NcT'ertheless, he paid another visit to Josh the next 
reek, and found him in a hopeful state. 

‘"I’ve hit on’t now. Parson Pitcher!” said he 
without waiting for a more usual salutation. “Miss 
Eunice she helped me : she’s a master cretux for inven- 


UNCLE JOSH. 


273 


kions. I s-sugar! There, that’s it. When I’m 
a-goin’ to speak quick, I catch up somethin’ else that’s 
got the same letter on the bows, and I tell yew^ it goes, 
’r else it’s somethin’.—Hollo! I see them d-dipper 
sheep is in my corn. Git aout! git aout! you d-dan- 
delions ! Grit aout 1 ” Here he scrambled away after 
tje stray sheep, just in time for the parson, who had 
quieted his face and walked in to see Mrs. Crane, when 
Josh came back dripping, and exclaiming, “Pepper- 
grass ! them is the d-drowndedest sheep I ever see.” 

This new spell of “Miss Eunice’s,” as Josh always 
called his wife, worked well while it was new. But the 
unruly tongue relapsed; and meek Mrs. Crane had 
grown to look upon it — as she would upon a wooden 
leg, had that been Josh’s infirmity — with pity and 
regret, the purest result of a charity which “ endureth 
and hopeth all things,” eminently her ruling trait. 

Every thing else went on prosperously. The farm 
I paid well, and Josh laid up money, but never for him¬ 
self. They had no children, a sore disappointment to 
both their kindly hearts; but all the poor and orphan 
little ones in the town seemed to have a special claim 
on their care and help. Nobody ever went away 
hungry from Josh’s door, or unconsoled from Miss 
Eunice’s “keeping-room.” Everybody loved them 
both, and in time people forgot that Josh swore ; but he 
never did : a keen pain discomforted him whenever he 
saw a child look up astonished at his oath. He had 
gre^n so far toward “the full ear,” that he under¬ 
stood wha. an offence his habit was ; and it pained him 
very much that it could not be overcome, even in so 
long a trial. But soon other things drew on to change 
the current of Josh’s penitent thoughts. 


274 


somebody’s neighbors. 


He had been married about ten years when Misa 
Eunice began to show signs of failing health. She 
was, after the Yankee custom, somewhat older that 
her husband, and of too delicate a make to endure the 
hard life Conneeticut farmers’ wives must or do lead. 
Josh was as fond of her as he could be ; but he did not 
know how to demonstrate it. All sorts of comforts she 
had, as far as food and fire and elothing went, but no 
recreation. No public amusements ever visited Plain- 
field, a sparse and quiet village far off the track of any 
railroad. The farmers could not spend time to drive 
round the eountry with their wives, or to go visiting, 
except now and then on Sunday nights to a neighbor’s ; 
sometimes to a paring or husking bee, the very essenee 
of which was work. Once a year a donation-party at 
the minister’s, and a rare attendanee upon the sewing- 
cirele, distasteful to Josh, who must get and eat his 
supper alone in that case, — these were all the amuse¬ 
ments Miss Eunice knew. Books she had none, except 
her Bible, “Boston’s Fourfold State,” a dictionary, 
and an arithmetic, — relics of her sehool; and, if ever 
she wished for more, she repressed the wish, because 
these ought to be enough. She did not know, or dared 
not be conseious, that humanity needs something for 
its lesser and trivial life; that ‘ ‘ by all these things 
men live,” as well as by the word and by bread. 

So she drudged on uneomplainingly, and after ten 
years of patience and labor, took to her bed, and was 
pronounced by the Plainfield doetor to have sueeessively 
“ a spine in the back,” a “ rising of the lungs,” and a 
* ‘ gittaral complaint of the lights. ’ ’ (W as it catarrhal ?) 
Duly was she blistered, plastered, and fomented, dosed 
with Brandreth’s pills, mullein-root in cider, tansy, 


UNCLE JOSH. 


275 


burdock, bitter-sweet, catnip, and bonesct teas, sow- 
bugs tickled into a ball, and swallowed alive, dried 
rattlesnakes* flesh, and the powder of a red squirrel, 
shut into a red-hot oven living, baked till powderable, 
and then put through that process in a mortar, and 
administered fasting. 

Dearly beloved, I am not inprovising. All these, 
and sundry other and filthier medicaments which I 
refrain from mentioning, did once, perhaps do still, 
abound in the inlands of this Yankeedom, and slay 
their thousands yearly, as with the jaw-bone of an ass. 

Of course Miss Eunice pined and languished, not, 
merely from the ‘‘simples’* that she swallowed, but 
because the very fang that had set itself in the breast 
of Josh’s gentle mother gnawed and rioted in hers. 
At length some idea of this kind occurred to Uncle 
Josh’s mind. He tackled up Boker, the old horse, and 
set out for Sanbury, where there lived a doctor of some 
eminence, and returned in triumph, with Dr. Sawyer 
following in his own gig. 

Miss Eunice was carefully examined by the physi¬ 
cian, a pompous.but kindly man, who saw at once there 
was no hope and no help for his fluttered and panting 
patient. 

When the millennium comes, let us hope it will bring 
physicians of sufficient fortitude to forbear dosing in 
hopeless cases : it is vain to look for such in the present 
condition of things. And Dr. Sawyer was no better 
than his kind; he hemmed, hawed, screwed up one 
eye, felt Miss Eunice’s pulse again, and uttered orac¬ 
ularly, — 

I think a portion of some sudorific febrifuge would 
probably allay Mrs. Crane’s hectic.” 


276 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“Well, I expect it would,” confidently asserted 
Josh. “ Can I get it to the store, doctor? ” 

“No, sir: it should be compounded in the family, 
Mr. Crane.” 

“Dew tell!” responded Josh, rather crestfallen, 
but brightening up as the doctor went on to describe, 
in all the polysyllables he could muster, the desirable 
fluid. At the end Josh burst out joyfully with, — 

“I sw-swan! ’tain’t nothin’ but lemonade with 
gumarabac in’t.” 

Dr. Sawyer gave him a look of contempt, and took 
his lea^ e. Josh laboring under the profound and happy 
conviction that nothing ailed Miss Eunice, if lemonade 
was all that she needed ; while the doctor called, on his 
way home, to see Parson Pitcher, and to him confided 
the mournful fact that Miss Eunice was getting ready 
for heaven fast, could scarcely linger another week by 
any mortal help. Parson Pitcher grieved truly ; for he 
loved and respected Eunice, and held her as the sweet¬ 
est and brightest example of unobtrusive religion in all 
his church : moreover, he knew how Josh would feel; 
and he dreaded the task of conveying to him this pain¬ 
ful intelligence, resolving, nevertheless, to visit them 
next day with that intent, as it was now too near night 
to make it convenient. 

But a more merciful and able shepherd than he pre¬ 
ceded him, and spared Josh the lingering agony of an 
expectation that could do him no good. Miss Eunice 
had a restless night after Dr. Sawyer’s visit; for, with 
ihe preternatural keenuess of her disease, she read the 
truth in his eye and tone. Though she had long 
looked on to this end, and was ready to enter into rest, 
the nearness of that untried awe agitated her, and for- 


UNCLE JOSH. 


277 


bade her sleep; but faith, unfailing in l.)itter need, 
calmed her at length, and with peace wr’Hen upon her 
face she slept till dawn. A sudden pang awoke her, 
and her start roused Josh. He lifted her on the pillow, 
where the red morning light showed her gasping and 
gray with death: he turned all cold. 

“Good-by, Josh!” said her tender voice, fainting 
as it spoke, and, with one upward rapturous look of the 
soft brown eyes they closed forever, and her head fell 
back on Josh’s shoulder, dead. 

There the neighbor who “did chores” for her of 
late found the two when she came in. Josh had 
changed since his mother died; for the moment Mrs. 
Casey lifted his wife from his arm, and laid her patient, 
peaceful face back on its pillow. Josh flung himself 
down beside her, and cried aloud with the passion and 
carelessness of a child. Nobody could rouse him, no¬ 
body could move him, till Parson Pitcher came in, and, 
taking his hand, raised and led him into the keeping- 
room. .There Josh brushed off the mist before his 
drenched eyes with the back of his rough hand, and 
looked straight at Parson Pitcher. 

“O Lord! she’s dead,” said he, as if he alone of 
all the world knew it. 

“Yes, my son, she is dead,” solemnly replied the 
parson. “It is the will of God, and you must con¬ 
sent.” 

“I can’t, I can’t! I a’n’t a-goin’ to,” sobbed Josh. 
“’Ta’n’t no use talkin’—if I’d only ’xpected some¬ 
thin’ : it’s that-doctor ! O Lord ! I’ve swore, and 

Miss Eunice is dead ! Oh gracious goody! what be I 
ft-goin’ to do ? Oh, dear, oh, dear! O Miss Eunice ! ” 

Parson Pitcher could not ev^n smile: tlie poor 



278 


SOMEBODY’S NEIGHBOKS. 


fellow’s grief was too deep. What could he think of 
to console him, but that deepest comfort to the be¬ 
reaved, — her better state? “ My dear friend, be com¬ 
forted Eunice is with the blessed in heaven.” 

“ I know it. I know it. She allers was nigh about 
fit to get there without dyin’. O Lordy! she’s gone 
tc heaven, and I ha’n’t! ” 

No, there was no consoling Uncle Josh: that touch 
of nature showed it. He was alone, and refused to be 
comforted: so Parson Pitcher made a fervent prayer 
for the living, that unawares merged into a thanksgiv¬ 
ing for the dead, and went his way, sorrowfully con¬ 
victed that his holy oflSce had in it no supernatural 
power or aid, that some things are too deep and too 
mighty for man. 

Josh’s grief raved itself. into worn-out dejection, 
still too poignant to bear the gentlest touch : his groans 
and cries were heart-breaking at the funeral, and it 
seemed as if he would really die with agony while the 
despairing wretchedness of the funeral hymn, the wail¬ 
ing cadences of “ China,” poured round the dusty and 
cobwebbed meeting-house to which they carried his 
wife in her coffin, one sultry August Sunday, to utter 
prayers and hymns above her who now needed no 
prayer, and heard the hymns of heaven. 

After this. Josh retired to his own house, and, 
according to Mrs. Casey’s story, neither slept nor ate ; 
but this was somewhat apocryphal: and, three days 
after the funeral, Parson Pitcher, betaking himself to 
the Crane farm, found Uncle Josh whittling out a set 
of clothes-pegs on his door-step, but looking very 
downcast and miserable. 

“ Good-morning, Mr. Crane ! ” said the good divine 


UNCLE JOSH. 


270 


“ Mornin’, Parson Pitcher! Hev’ a cheer? ’’ 

The parson sat down on the bench of the stoop, and 
wistfully surveyed Josh, wondering how best to intro¬ 
duce the subject of his loss ; but the refractory widower 
ga ve no sign, and at length the parson spoke. 

“ I hope you begin to be resigned to the will of 
Providence, my dear Mr. Crane? 

“No, I don’t, a speck!” honestly retorted Josh. 
Paison Pitcher was shocked. 

“ I hoped to find you in a better frame,” said he. 

“ I can’t help it! ” exclaimed Josh, flinging down a 
finished peg emphatically. “ I ain’t resigned. I want 
Miss Eunice. I ain’t willin’ to have her dead : I can’t 

and I ain’t; and that’s the hull on’t I And I’d a- 

sight Hither— Oh, goody! I’ve swore agin. Lord-a- 
massy! ’n’ she ain’t here to look at me when I do, 

and I’m goin’ straight to the d-! Oh, land, there 

it goes! Oh, dear soul! can’t a feller help himself 
nohow? ” 

And, with that. Josh burst into a passion of tears, 
and fled past Parson Pitcher into the barn, from 
whence he emerged no more till the minister’s steps 
were heard crunching on the gravel-path toward the 
gate ; when Josh, persistent as Galileo, thrust his head 
out of the barn-window, and repeated in a louder and 
more strenuous key, “ I ain’t willin’, Parson Pitcher! ” 
leaving the parson in a dubious state of mind, on which 
he niminated for some weeks; finally concluding to 
leave Josh alone with his Bible till time should blunt 
the keen edge of his pain, and reduce him to reason. 
And he noticed with great satisfaction that Josh 
came regularly to church and conference-meetings, and 
at length resumed his work with a due amount of. com- 
posure. 




280 


somebody’s neighboes. 


There was in the village of Plainfield a certain Miss 
Ranney, daughter of the aforesaid Mrs. Ranney, the 
greatest vixen in those parts, and of course an old 
maid. Her temper and tongue had kept off suitors in 
her youth, and had in nowise softened since. Her 
name was Sarah, familiarized into Sally; and as sho 
grew up to middle age, that pleasant, kindly title being 
sadly out of keeping with her nature, everybody called 
her Sail Ran, and the third generation scarce knew 
she had another name. 

Any uproar in the village always began with Sail 
Ran; and woe be to the unlucky boy who pilfered an 
apple under the overhanging trees of Mrs. Ranney’s 
orchard by the road, or tilted the well-sweep of h(ir 
stony-curbed well to get a drink. Sail was down upon 
the offender like a hail-storm; and cuffs and shrieks 
mingled in wild chorus with her shrill scolding, to the 
awe and consternation of every child within half a 
mile. 

Judge, then, of Parson Pitcher’s amazement, when, 
little more than a year after Miss Eunice’s death, 
Josh was ushered into his study one evening, and, 
after stroking a new stove-pipe hat for a long time, at 
length said he had “come to speak about bein’ pub¬ 
lished.” The parson drew a long breath, partly for 
the mutability of man, partly of pure wonder. 

“Who are you going to marry, Mr. Crane?” said 
he, after a pause. Another man might have softened 
the style of his wife to be : not Josh. 

“ Sail Ran,” said he undauntedly. Parson Pitcher 
arose from his chair, and, with both hands in his 
pockets, advanced upon Josh like horse and foot to 
gether. But he stood his ground. 


UNCLE JOSH. 


281 


“What in the name of common sense and decency 
do you mean by marrying ^hat woman, Joshu-way 
Crane? ” thundered the parson. 

“Will, ef you’ll set down, Parson Pitcher, I’ll tell 
ye the rights on’t. You see, I’m dreadful pestered 
with this here swearin’ way I’ve got. I kinder thought 
it would wear off, if Miss Eunice kep’ a-lookin at me ; 
but she’s died.” Here Josh interpolated a great blub¬ 
bering sob. “ And I’m gettin’ so d-bad ! There ! 

you see, parson, I doo swear dreadful; and I ain’t no 
more resigned to her dyin’ then I used ter be, and I 
can’t stan’ it. So I set to figgerin’ on it out, and I 
guess I’ve lived too easy, hain’t had enough ’dictions 
and trials. So I concluded I hed oughter put myself 
to the wind’ard of some squalls, so’s to learn naviga¬ 
tion ; and I couldn’t tell how, till suddenly I brought 

to mind Sail Pan, who is the D-and all. Oh, dear, 

I’ve nigh about swore agin’ ! And I concluded she’d 
be the nearest to a cat-o-nine-tails I could get to tew- 
tor me. And then I reklected what old Cap’n Thomas 
used to say when I was a boy aboard of his whaler: 

‘Boys,’ sez he, ‘you’re allers sot to hev’ your own 

way, and you’ve got ter hev mine: so’s it’s pooty 
clear that I shall flog you to rope-yarns, or else you’ll 
hev to make b’lieve my way’s your’n, which’ll suit all 
round.' So you see. Parson Pitcher, I w’an’t a-goin’ 
io put myself in a way to quarrel with the Lord’s will 
agin ; and I don’t expect you to hev’ no such trouble 
with me twice, as you’ve hed sence Miss Eunice up 
an’ died. I swan I’ll give up reasonable next time, 
seein’ it’s Sail.” 

Hardly could Parson Pitcher stand this singular 
p,creed of doctrine, or the shrewd and self-satisfied yet 





282 


somebody’s neighbors. 


honest expression of face with which Josh clinched 
his argument. Professing himself in great haste to 
study, he promised to publish as well as to marry Josh, 
and, when his odd parishioner was out of hearing, 
indulged himself with a long fit of laughter, almost 
inextinguishable, over Josh’s patent Christianizer. 

Great was the astonishment of the whole congrega¬ 
tion on Sunday, when Josh’s intentions were given out 
from the pulpit, and strangely mixed and hesitating 
the congratulations he received after his marriage, 
which took place in the following week. Parson Pitcher 
took a curious interest in the success of Josh’s project, 
and had to acknowledge its beneficial effects, rather 
against his will. 

Sail Ran was the best of housekeepers, as scolds are 
apt to be ; or is it in reverse that the rule began ? She 
kept the farmhouse Quakerly clean, and every garment 
of her husband’s scrupulously mended and refreshed. 
But, if the smallest profanity escaped Uncle Josh’s 
lips, he did indeed “hear thunder;” and, with the 
ascetic devotion of a Guyonist, he endured every objur¬ 
gatory torrent to the end, though his soft and kindly 
heart would now and then cringe and quiver in the 
process. 

It was all for his good, he often said; and, by the 
time Sail Ran had been in Miss Eunice’s place for an 
equal term of years. Uncle Josh had become so mild- 
spoken, so kind, so meek, that surely his dead wife 
must have rejoiced over it in heaven, even as his breth¬ 
ren did on earth. 

And now came the crowning honor of his life. Uncle 
Josh was made a deacon. Sail celebrated the event 
by a new black silk frock; and asked Parson Pitcher 


UNCLE JOSH. 


283 


home to tea after the church-meeting, and to such a 
tea as is the gTeat glory of a New-England house¬ 
keeper. Pies, preserves, cake, biscuit, bread, sliort- 
cake, cheese, honey, fruit, and cream, were pressed 
and pressed again upon the unlucky parson, till he was 
ijuite in the condition of Charles Lamb and the omni¬ 
bus, and gladly saw the signal of retreat from the 
table; he withdrawing himself to the bench on the 
stoop, to breathe the odorous June air, and talk over 
matters and things with Deacon Josh, while “Miss 
Crane cleared off.’" 

Long and piously the two worthies talked; and at 
length came a brief pause, broken by Josh. 

“Well, Parson Pitcher, that ’are calkerlation of 
mine about Sail did come out nigh onter right, didn’t 
it?” 

“ Yes indeed, my good friend,” returned the parson. 
“ The trial she has been to you has been really blessed, 
and shows most strikingly the use of discipline in this 
life.” 

“Yes,” said Josh. “If Miss Eunice had lived, I 
don’t know but what I should ’a’ ben a swearin’ man 
to this day; but Sail she’s rated it out o’ me. And 
I’m gettin’ real resigned too.” 

The meek complacency of the confession still gleamed 
in Uncle Josh’s eyes as he went in to pra 3 ws; but 
Sail Ran looked redder than the crimson peonies on 
her posy-bed. 

Parson Pitcher made an excellent prayer, particu¬ 
larly descanting on the use of trials; and when l:o 
came to an end, and arose to say good-night, Mrs. 
Crane had vanished: so he had to go home without 
taking leave of her. Strange to say, during the follow- 


284 


somebody’s neighbors. 


ing year a rumor crept through the village that “ Misa 
Deacon Crane” had not been heard to scold once for 
months ; that she even held her tongue under provoca¬ 
tion ; this last fact being immediately put to the test 
by a few evil-minded and investigating boys, who pro¬ 
ceeded to pull her fennel-bushes through the pickets, 
and nip the yellow heads ; receiving for their audacious 
thieving no more than a mild request not to “ do 
that,” which actually shamed them into apologizing. 

With this confirmation, even Parson Pitcher began 
to be credulous of report, and sent directly for Deacon 
Crane to visit him. 

“How’s your wife, deacon?” said the parson, ai 
soon as Josh was fairly seated in the study. 

“Well, Parson Pitcher, she’s most onsartainly 
changed. I don’t believe she’s got riled mor’n once, 
or gin it to me once, for six months.” 

“Very singular,” said Parson Pitcher. “I am 
glad for both of you. But what seems to have wrought 
upon her ? ’ ’ 

“ Well,” said Uncle Josh, with a queer glitter in his 
eye, “I expect she must *a’ ben to the winder that 
night you ’n’ I sot a-talkin’ on the stoop about ’flic- 
tions and her ; for next day I stumbled, and spilt a lot 
o’ new milk onto the kitchen-fioor. That allers riled 
her: so I began to say, ‘ Oh, dear, I’m sorry. Sail! ’ 
when she ups right away, and sez, sez she, ‘ You hain’t 
no need to be skeered. Josh Crane: you’ve done with 
’flictions in this world. I sha’n’t never scold you no 
more. I ain’t a-goin’ to be made a pack-horse to 
carry my husband to heaven.’ And she never said no 
more to me, nor I to her; but she’s ben nigh about as 
pretty-behaved as Miss Eunice ever since ; and I hop« 


UNCLE JOSH. 


285 


I sha’n’t take to swearin'. I guess I sha’n’t; but I 
do feel kinder crawly about bein' resigned." 

However, Uncle Josh’s troubles were over. Sail 
Ran dropped her name for ‘‘Aunt Sally," and finally 
joined the church, and was as good in her strenuous 
way as her husband in his meekness; for there are 
“diversities of gifts." And when the Plainfield bell, 
one autumn day, tolled a long series of eighty strokes, 
and Deacon Crane was gathered to his rest in the 
daisy-sprinkled burying-yard beside Miss Eunice, the 
young minister who succeeded Parson Pitcher had 
almost as hard a task to console Aunt Sally as his 
predecessor had to instil resignation, on a like occa¬ 
sion, into Uncle Josh. 


POLL JENNINGS’S HAIR. 


It I3 sometimes a relief to have a story without a 
heroine, and this distinction alone can I claim for 
mine. Nothing heroic or wonderful casts its halo about 
little Poll Jennings, the seventh daughter of Abe Jen¬ 
nings, the south-side fishermau. Not even one of those 
miraculous poor cottages that are always so exquisitely 
clean, and have white curtains and climbing roses 
through all depths of poverty and suffering, held my 
little girl in its romantic shelter. Abe’s house, lying 
between three of those low sand-hills that back the 
shore on our New-England coast, like waves of land 
that simulate the sea, was not in the least attractive or 
picturesque. At first a mere cabin of drift-wood, the 
increasing wants and numbers of his family had, as it 
were, built themselves out in odd attachments — square, 
or oblong, or triangular — as wood came to hand, or 
necessity demanded, till the whole dwelling bore the 
aspect externally of a great rabbit-hutch or poultry- 
house, such as boys build, on a smaller scale, out of old 
boards from ruined barns, palings of fence, and refuse 
from carpenters’ shops. Though no constructive maga¬ 
zine furnished inside or outside of the fisherman’s 
home, it was all fashioned from the waifs of a great 
(destroyer, — all drift-wood from the sea, that raved 
an I thundered half a mile off, as if yet clamorous foi 
286 


POLL JENNINGS’S HAIR. 


287 


itis prey. Still, uncouth and rude as was its shaping, 
a poet might have found it more suggestive than any 
model cottage in the land, — if a poet be not merely 
the rhymer of sentiment and beauty, but he whose 
creative soul, from one slight thread of association, 
spins a wide web of • fancies, and tracks the idea 
through all its windings, till imagination becomes 
reality, and the real and the ideal are one. However, 
no poet ever entered there to talk or think all this non¬ 
sense • and the old walls, where teak, that an Indian 
forest missed, stood side by side with oak from English 
uplands, and pine from the -^olian woods of Maine; 
the windows, that had been driven ashore, void of 
their crystal panes, from some full-freighted steamer, 
gone down too deep for any more wistful eyes to watch 
receding shore or hurrying storm-rack through the 
sashes; doors, that had swung to in the last Im’ch of 
the vessel, and made the state-rooms they guarded 
tombs of the dead, — all these spoke nothing to the 
practical brain of old Abe Jennings, nor softened to 
any pathos the high spirits of his six rosy daughters, 
who laughed and romped and worked, as regardless of 
any outside suffering as if they were the world, and 
their sand-hills comprised all life and destiny. But 
Poll, the last and least of the seven, was one of those 
exceptional creatoes that come as some new and 
strange variety of a flower does, as unlike all its con¬ 
geners in tint and habit as if it were the growth of an 
alien soil and climate. Ruth and Mary and Martha, 
Nancy, Jane, and Adeline, were all straight and strong, 
with thick, dark hair, varying only from the tar-black 
of Ruth’s coarse curls to the shining deep-brown of 
Adeline’s braids. Rose? of the deepest dye bloomed 


288 


somebody’s NEIGHBOtlS. 


on their faces. Except Ruth, they were nevei^sad oi 
moody: they had their sweethearts and their frolics, 
and were altogether common-sense, ordinary, whole¬ 
some girls as one could find. Polly could lay claim to 
none of these charms or virtues: she was slight and 
pale, with great hazel eyes, that oftenest looked vague 
and dreamy; her very lips were colorless; and her 
skin, roughened and red, offered neither blocm nor 
purity to attract the eye : but her hair was truly mag¬ 
nificent. Of the deepest red,—undeniably red, as is the 
glossy coat of a bright bay horse, — it fell to her feet in 
shining waves, so soft, so fine, yet so heavy, that it 
seemed as if the splendid growth had absorbed all the 
beauty and strength that should otherwise have been 
hers in face and form. But with this peculiar coloring 
came also the temperament of which it is the index, — 
sensitive, passionate, shy as a quail, yet proud as only 
a woman can be. If Poll Jennings had been taught and 
trained to the height of her capacities, or even had the 
means of self-training, her latent genius would have 
dawned on her sphere in one shape or another; and 
perhaps an actress, perhaps an author, some star of 
art, some wonder of vocalization, might have delighted 
or astonished the world. But, happily for Poll, another 
and a better fate than these awaited her, though its 
vestibule was only a hut, and its locality the sand-hills 
of the J^tlantic'shore. Yet this special beauty of the 
child’s, her resplendent hair, was made her peculiar 
torment. To her sisters and father it was red, and only 
red; and all the jokes that people will waste on that 
int — artistic, historic, exquisite as it may be—were 
.avished on Polly’s head, till hot tears filled hei’ eyes 
and burning color suffused her face at the least allusior 


POLL Jennings’s hair. 


289 


to it. Moreover, her physical capacity was far inferior 
to that of her sisters ; her slight hands and arms could 
not row a boat through the rolling seas outside the bar ; 
she could not toil at the wash-tub, or help draw a seine ; 
and when a young farmer from inland came down “ to 
salt,” or a sturdy fisher from another bay hauled up 
his boat inside the little harbor of Squamkeag Light, 
and trudged over to have a talk with old Abe, it was 
never Poll who waded out into the mud with bare, 
white legs and flying hair, to dig clams for supper; 
or who, with a leather palm, in true sailor-fashion, 
mended sails by the fireside, singing ’longshore songs 
at her work. Poll’s place was never there : she shrank 
away to gather berries, or hunt for gulls’ eggs, or 
crouched motionless in a darker corner, her great, 
luminous eyes fixed on some panelled fragment of the 
wall that hungry seas had thrown ashore, painting to 
herself the storm and the wreck till she neither heard 
nor saw the rough love-making that went on beside her. 
So it happened that Mary and Martha, the twins, 
married two young farmers up the country, and led 
the unpastoral lives that farming women in New 
England must lead, — lives of drudgery and care. 
Nancy went off with a young fisherman over to Fire 
Island. Euth, the oldest, had lost her lover, years 
gone by, in a whale-ship that sailed away, and was 
never heard of more; while Jane was just about to 
be married to hers, mate on a New-Haven schooner, — 
“Mdse, to Barbadoes,” as the shipping-list said: and 
Adeline laughed and coquetted between half a dozen 
of the roughest sort. 

There were enough at home to do the work; and 
Ruth’s s6t sobriety, Jane’s boisterous healthiness. 


290 


somebody’s neighbors. 


Adeline’s perpetual giggle, none of them chimed with 
Poll’s dreamy nature. A weary sense of her own 
incapacity oppressed her all the time. She could not 
work as they did; and, worst of all, the continual 
feeling that she was ugly, “red-headed,” “white¬ 
faced,” “eyes as big as a robin’s,” brooded over her 
solitary thoughts, and made her more sad, more lonely, 
from day to day. Yet though no refinement of speech 
ever turned plain “Poll” into Pauline, and no suave 
ministrations of higher civilization toned her wild grace 
.into elegance, or wove her beautiful locks into the 
crown they should have been, she had her own consola¬ 
tions ; for Nature is no foster-mother, and she took this 
sobbing child into her own heart. Polly’s highest 
pleasure was to steal out from the cabin, and wander 
away to the shore: there, laid at length among the 
rank grass whose leaves waved and glittered in the 
wind, she watched the cmding waves of beiyl sweep in, 
to leap and break in thunder, while the spray-bells 
were tossed far and sparkling from their crests on the 
beaten sands, and the crepitation of those brilliant 
bubbles, crushed beneath the wave, scarce finished its 
fairy peal of artillery ere another and a heavier surf 
swelled, and curled, and broke above it; while milk- 
white gulls darted and screamed overhead, or a lonely 
fish-hawk hovered with dire intent over the shoal of 
fish that dhnpled and darkened the water with a wan¬ 
dering wave of life ; and far beyond, through the pur¬ 
ple haze that brooded on the horizon, white-sailed ships 
glided into sight, and, stately as dreams, vanished 
Hgain whence they seemed to come. Here, while the 
i.resh breeze swept her cheek with its keen odor of the 
seas, and the warm sands beneath quickened her Ian* 


POLL Jennings’s hair. 


291 


guid pulses, Poll lay hour after hour, and dreamed, — 
not such dreams as girls have whose life is led among 
luxury and society, hut pure visions of far-off countries 
beyond the ocean, whose birds and flowers and trees 
were all of earth’s brightest, and all quickened with 
the acute life of the sea itself to poignant beauty, 
lleie, in this paradise, no mocking mirth, no harsh 
woid, no cold or storm, intruded; and in its castles a 
new life dawned for the fisherman’s girl, that held her 
in its trance safe from the harshness of her own, and 
lapped her in its soft sweetness from all that was hard 
and bitter in reality. So all the summer days passed 
away, lying on the shore, or wandering on the sand-hills 
that rolled back to sand-plains or boggy stretches of 
inland; plains that had their own treasures of great 
open-eyed violets, azure as the sky above, or white as 
its clouds, — milky strawberry-blooms and clusters of 
their scarlet fragrant fruits, crowding flowers of pink ] 
and purple, trails of starry blackberry-vines, and 
swamps that beguiled her wandering feet through fra¬ 
grant thickets of bayberry, tangled with catbrier and 
uweetbrier, to great blueberry-bushes, hanging thick 
with misty blue spheres, aromatic and sweet with a 
sweetness no tropic suns can give; while beside them 
bloomed the splendid wild lily, set thick as a pagoda 
with bells ; and at its foot the rare orange orchis showed 
its concentred sunshine, and regal cardinal-flowers 
flamed through the thin grass with spikes of velvet fire. 

Not a flower blossomed, or a fruit ripened, for miles 
about, that Poll did not know : it was she who hung the 
shelf above the chin?ney "with bundles of spearmint, 
peppermint, boneset, marsh-rosemary, pennyroyal, 
mountain-mint, tansy, catnip, sweet-fern, sweet-cicely, 


292 


somebody’s neighbors. 


prince’s-piny, sassafras-root, winter-green, and birch* 
bark, part the gatherings of her own rambles at home, 
part a tribute from her sisters up the country, who 
brought Poll only “ yarbs ” instead of the squashes 
for Ruth, the apples that filled Jane’s apron, and the 
liickory-nuts Adeline cracked in her great white teeth. 
So things went on till Poll was seventeen and our 
story begins; when Jane’s lover came home and they 
were married, and Adeline betook herself to see Nancy, 
leaving only the eldest and youngest of the seven ' sis¬ 
ters at home for the winter that set in early and bitter. 
The last day of November was a wild north-easter: 
rain, that the fierce wind drove aslant against the hut 
windows, froze as fast as it fell, and while Ruth sat by 
the stove, and sewed, di-awing once in a while one of 
those deep sighs that are the echoes of a great sorrow 
gone past. Poll pressed her face against the blurred 
window-pane to see the storm she dared not be out in ; 
and, while she looked and dreamed, the outer door burst 
open, and in came her father, dripping as if he had 
been drowned, followed by a stout young fellow as pale 
as a sheet, carrying his right arm in a sling. 

“I veow! ” said old Abe, shaking himself like a 
great water-dog, ef this a’n’t about the most weather- 
some weather I ever see. I ha’n’t ben only jest out¬ 
side the bar, an’ my jib’s as stiff as a tin pan, and the 
old fo’sail took an’ cracked fore an’ aft afore I could 
get her head on so’s to run in. Ef I hadn’t a had 
Sam Bent here along, I dono but what I should ha’ ben 
swamped, whether or no. He and me both done oui 
darnedest, and then I’ll be drowned ef he didn’t fab 
foul of a board’t was all glib ice, jest as we was a-land- 
in’ : up flew his heels, and he kinder lay to on his right 


POLL JENNESTGS’S HAIR. 


293 


fl,rm, so’t I expect it’s broke. I slung it up with my 
old comforter till he could get under hatches here, ’n’ 
now you gals must take keer on him till I make sail 
over to Punkintown, and get that are nateral bone-setter 
to come along and splice him.” 

Sam Bent was no stranger to the girls ; but, though 
Poll had often seen him before, she had never ex¬ 
changed half a dozen words with him. But ceremonies 
are spared at Southside : so Poll took the scissors which 
Ruth handed her, and proceeded to cut the sleeve of 
Sam Bent’s coat and jacket, while her sister set a 
spare bedroom to rights, and brewed some herb-tea, 
lest the youth might be ordered a sweat. Poll’s fingers 
were slight and careful, and she did her office tenderly, 
— even Sam felt it through the pain of his doubly- 
broken arm; and when at length Abe returned from 
his walk to Punkintown, a settlement some four miles 
inland, he found Sam, released from his heavy pea- 
jacket and coat, wrapped in Poll’s shawl, with his feet 
to the fire, about as comfortable as he could have been 
under the disadvantages of the occasion. The “nat¬ 
eral bone-setter” worked his usual wonders on the 
occasion, and, having duly splintered and bandaged 
the young man, took his knife out of his pocket, and 
began to snap the blade out and in as a preliminary to 
coiiversation, while he tilted his chair back against the 
wall, and cleared his throat with a vigorous “ ahem.” 

“Well, sir, well, sir,” began Dr. Higgs, “that job 
is done, sir. You will have rather of a procrastinat¬ 
ing season with such a fracter as that is ; but patience 
is a virtoo, sir. Yes, sir, and so is patients too, we 
doctors think. He, he, he ! Ho, ho, ho ! Well, I am 
pleased to see you reciprocate my little joke: raythei 


294 


somebody’s neighbors. 


hard to be ludiciously inclined, sir, under the proximity 
of corporal anguish. Ahem: shows you have good 
grit into you. I expect you’ll become evanescent very 
rapid, if you don’t catch a cold, nor over-eat, nor 
over-do the prudential, noway. Do you reside in these 
nai’ts, sir? ” 

“ I live over to Mystic when I’m to home,” modestly 
eplied Sam, overcome with this torrent of words, but, 
Cortunately for him, not knowing the difference between 
evanescent and convalescent. 

“Well, I can’t recommend to you a removal to 
your natyve spere immediately, sir. No, sir, I should 
rayther advise you, in order to abrogate your confine¬ 
ment as much as possible, to remain where you be. If 
any febrifugal disorders was to set in, it would con¬ 
catenate the fracter, sir. Very serious, very serious ! 
You will want considerble nussin’, I think proberble; 
and, if you can indooce this here old gentleman tc> 
inhabitate you for a spell, why, I should counsel you 
to become stationary for the present.” 

“I guess I a’n’t a-goin’ for to turn Sam Bent-out 
o’ my cabin, ef ’twa’n’t no bigger’n a yawl-boat’s 
locker,” growled old Abe. “He’s his father’s son, 
’n’ that’s enough, if he was the miserblest hoss-shoe 
crab ’t ever left his back behind him. Poll here can 
nuss him. She a’n’t good for much but pokin’ round, 
’n’ it’s too consarned cold to do that this kind o* 
clymit.” 

“Well, sir, well, sir. I’ll call over agin to-morrer, 
ef the weather is convenable. I am a-comin’ into this 
region to see a poor indignant female who is laid up 
with a neuralogy of the marrer-bones, so’t mebbe I 
shall be rather delayed in gettin’ around ; but I’m sure 


POLL JENNINGS'S HAIR. 


295 


certain to be on hand, Providence pennitting, before 
noon — by night whether or no. Good-day, good- 
day ! ’’ Wherewith the verbose doctor departed ; and 
Sam Bent, suddenly looking up, caught a little flicker 
of fun just fading out of Poll’s great eyes, and laughed 
outright. 

“ He bears up hard onto big words, don’t he? ” said 
Sam, whose genuine nature detected the pretension he 
did not understand. “He’s a kind of a nateral dic¬ 
tionary, I guess.” 

Poll’s eyes danced, and Sam fixed a long look on 
her. He didn’t know why, no more did she ; but, being 
both uncivilized enough to feel and think without ask¬ 
ing why or how, they were not concerned about the 
matter. Anc’, when Sam Bent was safely convoyed to 
bed in the queer little five-angled room allotted to him, 
he fell asleep, and dreamed he was drawing a seine on 
the north shore, and a great sting-ray stood up on its 
tail, and turned into Dr. Higgs; while Poll only lis¬ 
tened to the storm outside, and fancied that she heard 
minute-guns and shrieks of terror through the wild 
wind, and at length slept too heavily to dream. But 
for all this a great guest was drawing near to the fish¬ 
erman’s hut, though in silence and secrecy, — a guest 
that pagans hailed with wine and roses, wreaths of 
myrtle, and dances of joy, but we, sadder and wiser, 
welcome oftenest with trembling and wonder. Poll 
knew neither. She never even stopped to wonder why 
she cared no more to search the beach for its treasures, 
or p'^re over the odd pictures in the.r Bible. Nor did 
Sam Bent ever suspect why he liked to have his 
bandages renewed daily, his black hair smoothed for 
him, and his black ribbon knotted so carefully under 


296 


somebody’s neighbors. 


the coarse white collar that set off the muscular throat 
and handsome head above it. Sam would not have 
cared if his broken arm was not set for six months, 
he liked so well his self-elected office of teacher to 
Foil, who was learning to read at his knee like a child, 
and listening to his discourses of other lands (as she 
considered Maine and Georgia) with as much eager¬ 
ness as if he had been Hakluyt himself, instead of 
foremast hand to a coasting-schooner. Under the 
pressure of her new duties. Poll grew into new devel¬ 
opments. She became far more handy about the house ; 
she spoke oftener of her own accord; she moved more 
rapidly, and never a hole in her apron or her frock lay 
an hour unmeuded now; and, taking patient lessons 
of Ruth, she learned to mend Sam’s stockings so 
nicely, that he, at least, considered it an ornament 
to have had a hole in the most conspicuous quarter 
possible. 

But at last Sam got well, and could not evade the 
fact that he had been doing nothing for two months 
but receiving care and a home ; and he began to wonder 
to himself what he could ever do to escape from this 
hea\'y weight of obligation. Now it never was sup- 
jmsed in old times that the aforesaid little deity med¬ 
dled with lesser things than flowers and jewels; but 
gieat is civilization! In its faintest influence comes 
a subtlety unknown to dear primeval days ; and at t)iis 
juncture love — if love it was — dropped a timely rluni • 
matism on Uncle Abe’s old baek; and, the day aftei 
Sam Bent left off his sling, the poor old flsherman came 
iiome groaning and hobbling, and, I regret to say, 
swearing after his own Ashy fashion. 

“Darn it!” growled he, as he let himself dowB 


POLL Jennings's hair. 297 

into an old rush-bottomed chair that stood by the fire. 
“I’ll be jiggered if I a’n’t got to be in docks now! 
I couldn’t but jest h’ist her over the bar, ’n’ make out 
to git ashore. Flat-fish ’n’ flounders! I ha’n’t had 
such a spell sence ten year back; ’n’ what’s goin’ to 
become of the eyester bisness I should like ter tell? ” 

“You’d better take a sweat right away, father,” 
said Ruth, taking down the sheaf of boneset for the 
necessary brewage. 

“ Sweat! I calk’late I shall sweat enough with thi® 
here screwin’ in my bones, gal I Loddy Boddy 1 ef I 
don’t yell an’ holler afore daybreak, I shall miss my 
reckonin’; and all the eyesters in the bay’ll be raked 
up afore I’m stirrin’ agin, for all’t I know.” 

“ No, they won’t. Uncle Abe ! ” said Sam sturdily, 
coming up to the fire as he spoke. “Ha’n’t I had a 
free passage here nigh on to two months, ’n’ you 
think I a’n’t goin’ for to work it out? I ken work 
‘ The Mary Ann ’ fust-rate, and I know the lay of 
the beds pretty near as well as anybody. I’m all right 
now; and here I am, standin’ on my feet, ready to do 
the most a feller can, though I don’t never expect I 
can work out the kind o’ care I’ve hed along back.” 
With which Sam cast a sheep’s-eye at Poll’s place, 
and beheld — nobody; for she was behind him, look¬ 
ing hard out of the window at the new and interesting 
prospect of an old seine and two wash-tubs—back¬ 
ground a sand-hill. But Poll’s eyes were too misty to 
see; and her rough, red skin flushed to purple as she 
heard her father go on : — 

“Hold hard, Sam I You’re your dad’s son: there 
a’n’t a doubt on’t. Old ’Paphro Bent never see a dis- 
'.ress-signal h’isted, but what he lay to, an’ sent aboard. 


298 


somebody’s neighbors. 


But you’re a young feller, ’n’ I a’n’t a-goin’ for to 
take your vittles ’n’ put ’em into my jaws. You ken 
git a bunk aboard of any coaster, ’n’ get your wages 
reg’lar: so you ’bout ship, and mind your own helium. 
I can keep to my anchorage, I guess, for a spell; ’n’ 
it’s no use starving while them gals has got legs to 
go and dig clams. I shall weather it, boy; though I 
don’t say but what you’re a good feller to think on’t.” 

“ Now look at here. Uncle Abe,” said Sam vehe¬ 
mently, setting his feet as wide apart, and bracing his 
hands on his hips as firmly, as if he expected old Abe 
to make a rush at him, and try to upset him, “ ’tain’t 
no use hailin’ this here schooner with that kind of talk. 
I a’n’t a-goin’ coastin’. I a’n’t goin’ away. I wish 
I may be drownded off Hatteras, and come ashore at 
Point Judy, if I do ! I’m a-goin’ eyesterin’, an’ deep-sea 
fishin’ in ‘The Mary Ann,’ till that darned rheumatiz 
o’ yours goes to Joppy, ef it lasts till day after never; 
’n’ ef you won’t give me night’s lodgin’s and a meal 
of vittles here, why. I’ll go over to Squamkeag Light 
’n’ get ’em out o’ Ben Gould: so there’s the hull 
on’t! ” With which peroration Sam turned away, and 
spat energetically into the fire. 

Old Abe held his peace a minute. It was hard for 
the sturdy man to own his dependence, to become use¬ 
less ; and Sam’s strong youth and manhood mixed 
regret with his simple willingness of acceptance. 

“Well,” said he at last, “Lord knows I’d roller 
the sea till I dropped ef I hadn’t no rheumatiz ; but a 
rotten nulk a’n’t no use outside. You ken take ‘ The 
Mary Aim,’ Sam Bent. She’s easy handled, and she’s 
cute enough of herself to keep school to-morrer, ’n’ 1 
can tell you the lay of the eyester-beds tollei’ble w<J.l 


POLL Jennings’s piatr. 


299 


But look here, j^oung feller, ef I catch you a-takin’ a 
meal of vittles, or a night’s sleep, over to Ben Gould’s, 
you’ll hear thunder, ’n’ ketch lightnin’.” 

“Well, I won’t,’’ laughed Sam; and so the matter 
ended. And old Abe was put to bed with the dose of 
boneset, and rose no more for long weeks,—long 
enough to JRuth; for a sick man’s attendant has n^ 
sinecure. But Poll never wearied of the lingering days, 
for a step tramping over the sand-hills, and a broad, 
brown face full of honest delight, waited to charm the 
day’s ending, and in that anticipation nothing seemed 
dull or dreary. Nor did ever any man have gentler 
nursing than Poll lavished on her cross and unrea¬ 
sonable old father. One hears vast blame laid upon 
lovers for their seeming sweetness and excellence while 
yet love is new; but is not the blame unjust? For 
what can call out the latent lovelinesses of any charac¬ 
ter, if the one rose of life does not win them to the siu*- 
face? Lost in that divine blooming, wrapped in that 
sacred spell, shall not the desert blossom, and the sands 
glitter with flowing springs ? Still a desert; still the 
red sands : let us rather bless the transformer than sneer 
at the transformation. So the winter wore on; and 
if, in its routine, there was any'bitterness, it was only 
when storms swept over the hut with fierce scream and 
heavy pinions, and Ruth shuddered over her dead 
lover. Poll over her living one. Meanwhile no storms' 
wrecked Sam Bent. He raked oysters, and caught 
sea-bass, halibut, porgies, and various other finny 
creatures, in quantities unknown; discovered a new 
oyster-bed “ inside,” in one of his long voyages round 
Montauk; and made money at a rate that pleased 
uim even more than it did old Abe: while h^ thor 


300 


somebody's neighbors. 


oughl}^ enjoyed having a home to go to, and exulted 
in his pupil’s progress, who had got so far as to read 
fluently the book of fairy-tales he bought for her in 
New York by the first of April. But with April home 
came Adeline; and, Adeline being one of those women 
who are born coquettes, great was her delight at 
finding a handsome young fellow like Sam Bent domes¬ 
ticated in her house, and of course she immediately 
began a vigorous fiirtation with him. Now, Adeline 
was a sort of woman Sam had seen before, understood, 
and held in small account. With Poll he was respect¬ 
ful, shy, timid, yet self-respectful; but he laughed, 
jested, and romped with “Addy,” spoke to her as if 
she were another fisherman, helped her to dig clams, 
and sculled her boat across the bay with as much ease 
and carelessness as if she had been a boy. Poor Poll! 
She did not know why she grew cross to Adeline, and 
silent to Sam. Something told her that she ought not 
to steal away to her old haunts, and neglect her home¬ 
work, and let her father shift for himself as best he 
could; yet Poll did all this, and the sea and sky com¬ 
forted her no more. Neither was she particularly con¬ 
soled by hearing from her sleepless pillow, one night, 
Puth remonstrating with Adeline on her manners to 
Sam. 

“I don’t like to have you make so free with Sam 
•Bent, Addy,” said poor prim Ruth, who had never 
given so much as one kiss to Jonas Scranton before 
he sailed away to be drowned, and probably regretted 
it still. “ ’Tain’t mannerly to be a-rompin’ round sj 
with a young feller.” 

“ O law ! ” laughed Addy ; “ jest as ef I was go in 
to be stuck up with Sam Bent! I like to plague him. 


POLL JENNTXGS’S HAIR 


301 


He’s ben cooped up all winter with you an Poll till he 
wants a livenin’ up.” 

“ Well, ’tain’t a good thing for Poll to see you a-be- 
ha vin’ so, Addy. Maybe she might take to them ways, 
’n’ she a’n’t a kind to take things so easy as you 
do, ’n’ maybe folks would think hard of her ef she 
should foller your manners ; for you never was nothin’ 
but a kitten, sence you was knee-high to a hoptoad.” 

Adeline laughed harder than ever. “Well, T de¬ 
clare ! ” said she. “As ef our Poll would ever take to 
kitin’ after a feller like Sam Bent! I guess he would 
feel crawly if she did, poor cretur! That red hair and 
pink-red face of her’n a’n’t very takin’.” With 
which she resumed her laughter as if the idea was 
delightfully absurd. 

Euth gave a little sigh, and knit more energetically 
than ever. She might as well have exhorted the sea- 
spray as Adeline. She never even moved her to petu¬ 
lance with her exhortations, which would have been 
some comfort. But Poll turned her face to her pillow, 
crushed and heart-sick; and slow, hot tears crept 
down her cheeks one after another, as she thought of 
her happy winter evenings, of Sam Bent’s shy, kind 
looks, and, as climax, of her own horrid red hair, and 
rough skin, and saucer-eyes. Poor Poll! 

But by May Uncle Abe’s rheumatism began to be 
forgotten: his sturdy legs ached no more, his back 
biraightened out, and his weaUier-beaten face recovered 
ils old look of kindly shrewdness, and he was as fit as 
ever to handle “ The Mary Ann.” So Sam had been 
“ down to York,” and got a place as foremast hand on 
a brig bound for China, to sail the first of June, a 
good place, and good wages. Yet somehow Poll did 


502 


somebody’s neighboks. 


Dot receive the news joyfully; and she said nothing at 
all to Sam Bent when he came to announce it. 

Poll was not magnanimous; but who is — among 
women? That is not their forte. A thousand other 
virtues flourish with them; but this is the millennial 
grace, and Poll owned it not. She was as weak, as 
selfish, as jealous, as a humble and ugly woman is apt 
to be when she is in love ; and I shall not blame her, 
though I know there are plenty who will. So, when 
Ruth had said quietly, “I’m real glad, Sam, but we 
shall kinder miss you; ” and Adeline had giggled out, 
“Well, that is first-rate, ’n’ I guess you’ll have to 
get me something real pretty over to Chiny,” — Sam 
missed one voice that was, after all, the only one he 
cared for; and, looking round, saw Poll’s blue-check 
gown flutter away over the top of a sand-hill, past the 
window. “I declare for’t,” said Sam, “ if I hain’t 
left a lot o’ little fixin’s down in ‘ The Mary Ann,’ ’t 
I brought from York. I’ll jest step down and fetch 
’em.” 

I regret to say that Sam had left them on purpose, 
having already learned the strategic lesson of lovers, in 
order to provide some sure way of excuse to meet or 
follow Poll, if she should happen to be out of the 
house. Would he have followed her, had he known 
that she ran away to avoid him ? He might have been 
a fool for his pains, like other men. But it happened 
he had no provocation: so he betook himself to, or 
toward^ “The Mary Ann,” but, as soon as the house 
was hidden, changed his course, and followed after the 
light track of Poll’s steps till they were lost in the 
thick beach-grass. Poor child! she had thrown her- 
uelf down in the glittering blades, and buried her head 


POLL JENNINGS S HAIR. 


303 


m her apron. Faster than the clear green waves, that 
rolled relentless splendors on the failing shore below, 
did the heavy surges of her first sorrow thunder and 
sweep above her shrinking heart. Sam was going 
away. That was first; and then came in the shame, 
the self-contempt, the bitter grief, that had racked and 
wasted her ever since she overheard Ruth and Addy 
talking about her that unhappy night. What if he did 
stay? He wouldn’t care for her, handsome fellow! 
How could he bear to look at such a homely thing as 
she? And that dreadful hair! so red, and so much of 
it! If Poll had ever read novels, she might have torn 
it and scattered it with highly appropriate gestures. 
But she had not • so she let her hair alone, and only 
cried, and wished she was any body or any thing but 
Poll Jennings. Even a little fiddler-crab in its hole 
was enviable, since it never cared for Sam Bent, and 
hadn’t got red hair. 

Between the thunder of the surf, and the checked 
apron that covered her ears and tried to stifle her sobs. 
Poll heard nothing; but, in the midst of her passive 
anguish, suddenly a strong arm was passed round her; 
and, stunned with surprise, she found herself lifted on 
to Sam Bent’s knee. Any woman who knew any thing 
would have sprung to her feet and blazed with anger, 
told seven lies in one breath, defied and scorned Sam, 
and sent him to China a broken-hearted man, indiffer¬ 
ent to sharks and cholera, to be rewarded, perhaps, 
after ten years, with an elderly and acetous woman as 
the meed of constancy. But Poll was a little fool: she 
just laid her head against Sam’s red shirt, and sobbed 
harder than ever. Sam choked: he couldn’t speak, 
and yet he wanted to swear. Finally he sputtered out, 


804 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“ Poll, what’s to pay? ” No answer, only a great big 
Bob that seemed to shake the little creature in his arms 
all over, and made it incumbent on Sam to clasp her 
still tighter. 

So he tried again : — 

“ Poll, don’t! Hold up, dear! Don’t keep a-cryin‘ 
so!” Useless remonstrance; for, though the sobs 
ceased, bright drops of salt water that the sea dis¬ 
owned went hopping down that red flannel shirt in a 
deliberate way, as if they didn’t care to, but rathei 
thought it best. 

“ Polly,” repeated Sam in a gentler tone. 

“What?” said Poll faintly, lifting her head, and 
wiping her eyes with her apron. 

“ Don’t do that! I see you through the winder, and 
I follered along; for you see. Poll, I’m a-going to 
Chiny, ’n’ I wanted to — I — well — I dono. Poll, 
when I come back will you marry me? ” 

Poll’s eyes opened wider and brighter than ever. 
She drew back, and looked into Sam’s face: her cheek 
flushed as she met his steady gaze. 

“ Don’t make fun of me ! ” said she piteously. 

Sam’s eyes blazed. “Make fun of you!” said he 
indignantly. “Why, Poll Jinnins! what are you 
thinkin* about? I should think you might believe a 
feller was honest when he said that.” 

“ O Sam! ” pleaded Poll, with moist eyes. 

“ TU^Zyou, Poll?” 

“But — but — oh!” said she with half a sob. 
“ Are you sure, Sam? ” 

“ Sure of what? ” 

“ Sure you like me,” courageously ventured Poll. 

“I don’t know nothin’ else I’m so sure on,” said 
he dryly. 


POLL Jennings’s hair. 


805 


“ But I’ve got such red hair, Sam ! ” 

Sam laughed outright. He could not help it. But 
those great hazel eyes, full of vague apprehension, and 
the trembling lips, sobered him. 

“Well, Poll, I think your hair is the prettiest thing 
to you by a long sight. Sence I see it tumble down 
once, when you was a-bindin’ up my arm, I ha’n’t 
never see the sun risin’ acrost the water but what I’ve 
thought on’t: it’s just like the wake the sun makes, — 
kinder crinkly, and yet slick and bright, and kinder 
di-aws your eyes to’t. I wouldn’t change your hair for 
nobody’s ’t ever I see.” 

With which Sam withdrew the comb from the mas¬ 
sive knot, and its great bright ‘coil slipped down over 
Poll’s neck, and across his* arm, and spread into a veil 
of length and splendor Athene might have coveted, 
had she “been there to see.” Sam’s big brown fist 
grasped the silken waves; and, bringing them round 
before Poll’s face, he caressed his capture as if it were 
real gold, and he a miser, threaded it through his fin¬ 
gers, held it in bright bows up to the sunshine, stroked 
its ripples over his unoccupied knee, till Poll, who had 
innocently laid one arm round his neck while she looked 
on, fairly smiled ; but a sigh followed instantly. 

“ But I am so humly, Sam ! ” [Homely, she meant.] 
“Well,” said Sam, dropping the hair, and putting 
both arms round her, “ what if you be? And I don’t 
say’t I think you’re like a pink-and-white figure-head 
to a liner. I a’n’t one o’ them that buys a boat for its 
paint. I never see a handsome gal I liked half so well, 
’n’ I guess I wouldn’t ’a’ had no better care out o’ tfie 
prettiest cretur betwixt the reefs and the banks than I 
had last winter. Besides, Poll, to my mind your hair’s 


S06 


somebody’s neighbors. 


a sight prettier’n most folks’s hull faces; ’n% if your 
eyes be ruther big, they’re as bright as two starn-lan- 
terns any day, ’n’ as soft as a gull’s be. I don’t know 
what for you want to quarrel with your looks, so long’s 
I don’t.” 

A more fastidious man would not have found fault 
with the look she gave Sam now, —so tender, so inno¬ 
cently glad, so trustful; and, if Sam gave no audible 
reply, it was none the less fervently answered, and for 
the next hour Poll was happy. No more visions of 
over-sea now, no dream of tropic shores and unwither¬ 
ing blossoms: her tropic had come, and her fadeless 
flowers burst into glowing life. Her beautiful head 
safe on Sam’s shoulder, and her face buried in his 
strong breast, except when' he would lift it up to be 
kissed, she had no thought for the past or future: the 
only ‘ ‘ now ’ ’ of life held her fast; and in its sweet 
embrace she lay basking till common life, in the shape 
of Adeline, came full upon the deaf lovers, and re¬ 
marked sharply, — 

“Well, if 3 ^ou hadn’t ought to be ashamed, SaiL 
Bent, out here in the grass a-huggin’ and kissin’ our 
Poll!” 

Sam rose up with a laugh, carrying Poll with him, 
circled still in his arm. 

“ She’s my Poll now, Addy. I don’t know who’s 
a better right! ” 

“ Good Jehoshaphat I ” said old Abe, who had also 
f>ome up behind Adeline. 

At this singular expletive Addy herself laughed, 
though not a little piqued and provoked at Sam’s de¬ 
fection from her, as she fancied it. “ And all her red 
wig down her back!” exclaimed she, laying a rough 
grasp on the offending tresses. 


POLL JENNINGS’S HAIR. 


307 


“Hands off, Addy,” threatened Sam smilingly. 
“ That are’s mine too, ’n’ the biggest lady in the land 
might be proud on’t, ef ’tis red.” 

Adeline sniffed. 

“Well,” said old Abe, regarding the pair with his 
hands in his trowsers-pockets, and his hat askew, as if 
they were some great natural curiosity, ‘ ‘ this does beat 
all. Our Poll and Sam Bent! Well, I can’t lay no 
course here-away. I ha’n’t got my bearin’s.—A’n’t 
a-goin’ to trade her off down to Chiny, be ye, Sam?” 
concluded he, chuckling at his own facetiousness. 

“Money wouldn’t buy her,” said Sam, with a smile 
that consoled Poll for the family depreciation; and, 
still with his arm round her, the whole party drew to 
the hut to surprise Ruth. 

She took it more quietly and kindly. 

“ Well, I won’t say I haven’t thought on’t before,” 
said she. ‘‘ Poll’s more of a girl latterly’n what she was. 
And looks a’n’t of no account: they a’n’t lastin’.” 
Ruth sighed, wondering if Jonas would know the sad, 
dark face that looked at her from her cracked glass 
daily now, and went on, “ I don’t deny it’s a misfortin’ 
to have red hair; but then we didn’t make it, ’n’ can’t 
mend it: so it’s no use to be troubled.” 

“Her hair is splendid,” growled Sam angrily, a little 
o^ erdoing his praise to atone for the insult; and lifting 
the coil Poll was twisting, to his lips, he bestowed on 
it a hearty smack. 

“Hain’t you burnt you?” screeched Adeline; and 
Sam could scarce keep a straight face till he saw a teal 
cloud Poll’s eyes. 

“You want your ears boxed,” said he to Adeline, 
between vexation and laughter. 


308 


somebody’s neigpibors. 


“ I guess it’ll take more’n you to box ’em,” was the 
retort, whereupon a slight scuffle ensued; but Ruth re¬ 
marked to herself that Sam made no attempt to snatch 
the expected kiss from Adeline, and smiled as she 
noticed it; while Poll knotted up her hair, and won¬ 
dered at herself for Sam’s sake, and coiled the “red 
wig” tenderly, because he had praised and kissed it. 
Forgive her, sensible reader; I own she was a little 
fool. 

Sam found his way to the sloop, and brought up the 
little package of gifts for the girls,—Adeline’s red 
ribbon, and Ruth’s silver thimble, entirely overtopped 
by the delicate collar and book of pictures for Poll. 
But this was natural enough; though Adeline took 
occasion afterward to remark that he must have felt 
pretty sure Poll would have him when he bought them, 
a remark utterly neutralized by Poll’s naive and humble 
“ Why, of course he did.” 

The next morning Sam said good-by. He was going 
to Connecticut to see his grandmother, his only near 
relative living, and from there to join the brig. Poll 
cried bitterly but comfortably, if one may use so im- 
sentimental a word; for she had a heart full of com¬ 
fort, and just then it refused to face the possibility of 
loss, and bore up bravely against the need of separa 
tion. 

Summer was come too, and its long days of wander¬ 
ing. The sea laughed again on the shore, and flung its 
flower-spray over the relentless rocks till they lookexl 
only strong, no longer cruel: the long grass waved in 
soft, southern winds ; and the purple mists of the hori¬ 
zon were dotted with snowy sails, emerging and fleeing 
lU incessant, silent change: and every day, that flrst 


POLL Jennings’s hair. 


309 


bright week of June, Poll strained her eager eyes to 
see “The Flying Cloud;’’ and every ship seemed to 
her the ship she watched for, till at last came news that 
she had been spoken far out at sea by a returning 
vessel, and after that Poll watched no more. But not 
now could she spend her whole time in the fresh fields 
or on the shore: grave duties impended over her, and 
Puth would not let them be forgotten. Ruth herself 
had been under a mother’s care when Jonas left her, 
and been trained to those duties in the sweet anticipa¬ 
tion of their exercise in a home of her own ; and it was 
with bitter memories that she set herself to teach Poll 
how to keep house. Cooking ard washing, ironing, 
mending, cutting out new garments, and refitting old 
ones, might have been a dull routine to Poll before; 
but now it was vividly pleasant. Her imagination, that 
hitherto, aimless and void, had wandered far and wide 
on fair but profitless journeys, now drew down its 
wings for a narrower and more blessed sphere. Love 
has its own miracles, whether human or divine; and 
they who have known what it is to do every daily duty, 
whether trivial or important, as for one dearest object, 
toward whom life tends in every leaf and bough, as 
toward the light, can best understand what the apostle 
meant in charging his Christian flock to do all things 
as “ unto the Lord.” But Poll’s idol was of the earth 
as yet. She knew and aspired no higher ; though Sam 
Bent’s own earnest, rugged, every-day religion had 
recommended itself to her admiration and reverence 
long ago. So she did all these things as if Sam were 
to be directly aided and comforted by them, and soon 
surpassed her teacher in practice as far as she ex¬ 
ceeded her in mental ability; one’s mind having, aftei 


310 


somebody’s neighbors. 


all, in spite of customary sneers to the contrary, au 
effect on something besides literary capacity. Befoie 
autumn Uncle Abe discovered that nobody on the 
shore made chowder like Poll’s, or stewed such flavor- 
ous dishes from despised haddock and chip-dry halibuL 
Also a tiny bit of mould that the accretion of years of 
refuse had formed behind the house, much as it might 
have on a coral-reef. Poll had shorn of its rank weeds, 
dug, by means of an old fire-shovel, and planted with 
onions, beets, and potatoes; while in one corner 
bloomed and thrived a daily rosebush, Sam’s parting 
token, brought from New York by Ben Gould the day 
after “The Flying Cloud” sailed. Those pink buds 
told Poll a great many tender stories as she watched 
their clean, bright petals unfold against the myrtle- 
green leaves; and, if care were a specific for rose¬ 
bushes, this one ought to have fiourished even more 
than it did; and before autumn there grew about it, 
like a court about a queen, clusters of every blossom 
that was native to the soil, and Poll’s “ posy-bed ” was 
brighter and fairer than many a parterre of exotics. 

It is beyond the limits of fact to say, as we would 
be glad to, that this improvement of Poll’s renewed 
her complexion, and re-dyed her hair: unfortunately, 
they remained as rough and red as ever; but she had 
grown so tidy and so self-respectful, her calico dress 
was always so clean and well-fitted, her rippling hair 
so smooth and bright, and carefully knotted, that a 
new attraction embellished her, and approved itself to 
the housewifely soul of Martha, who lived up in the 
country, not two miles from Mary, and had come 
■down this hot September “to get recruited up,” as 
she phrased it, after the labors of summer. She was 


POLL Jennings’s hair. 


311 


30 pleased with Poll, — whom she had held in the same 
estimation that the rest bestowed on her formerly, — 
♦^^hat she asked her to go home with her for a visit; 
and Poll went. 

But though the rich meadows and wet woods of 
Ewefield were beautiful enough, in their green breadth 
and October solendor, to bewitch Poll’s unaccustomed 
eyes, she felt a strange languor assail her, and a 
sleepy sweetness in the air made it seem hard to 
breathe. She drooped and paled, and dragged her 
heavy feet from field to field in search of gay maple- 
lea 7es and new fiowers, till she was fit only to sink on 
the doorstep when she got back, and could scarce 
hold up her head, it ached and throbbed so hard. 
Long before the end of her month’s stay, she grew 
homesick for the queer old cabin and the poignant 
sea-breeze. Martha’s gray farmhouse, neat and cool 
and spare as it was, looked chill and dreary in every 
square room and clean corner; the dairy smells of 
curd and cheese sickened her morbidly acute sense; 
the quiet of the inland pastures and hills stifled her 
like a shroud. She could not eat, or sleep, or work, 
and she did not know why, except that she was home¬ 
sick ; and she heartily welcomed the day fixed for her 
to go home, and wondered at herself when the sea- 
wind failed to revive her, and her own little cot to 
rest her aching limbs. But a day or two of increasing 
weakness and sleeplessness revealed the secret of 
Poll’s restless manner and flushed cheek. In the steam¬ 
ing meadows of Ewefield, its thick river-fogs, and 
deep black swamps, full of routing vegetation, lurked 
the breath of malaria; and a violent fever had fas¬ 
tened upon Poll’s unacclima'ved frame, and begun to 


312 


somebody’s neighbors. 


waste and burn and destroy like an invading army; 
All Ruth’s simples were tried in vain; and when the 
redoubtable Dr. Higgs, the “ nateral bone-setter,” 
who was also the sole physician of Punkintown, was 
summoned, he pronounced Poll to be “in a most 
V'carious condition,—repugnant typhus, with a deter- 
minacy to digestion of the brain.” Perhaps his skill 
was better than his language; for he had, at least, 
sense enough to forbid either bleeding or blistering, 
as old Abe alternately begged for one or the other, 
simply because the only sickness he ever had was 
allayed by both. But at last Poll became so deliri¬ 
ous, and the danger to her brain so great, that every 
bit of her splendid hair was shorn, and at last shaved 
off, and the redundant tresses laid away in a drawer, 
perhaps, as Ruth thought, to be all Sam should find 
when he came back from China. 

Days and weeks passed by. November became 
December, and yet Poll wrestled with the death that 
impended over her; for, though the fever was at 
length mastered and abated, she was left in a state of 
infantile weakness, and it required all Ruth’s most 
faithful care to keep her in life. Her mind, too, 
seemed feeble as her body. She remembered nothing, 
cared for nothing, but took her food and tonics, and 
dozed away the days. But b}" the middle of January 
she began to brighten, to say a few weak words, 
though evidently Ruth and her father were her only 
memories. In her delirium she had raved about Sam 
and her red hair, regretted it, wept over it, and 
caressed it, by turns, till even Adeline felt painful 
twinges of repentance for the pain she had given the 
poor child in times past. But now she never men^ 


POLL Jennings’s hair. 


313 


tioned Sam’s name, nor alluded to her hair; and 
though there was a letter carefully laid away in Ruth’s 
drawer, waiting to be asked for, it se^jmed as if Poll 
had forgotten — but she only slept. 

One warm day in February she sat up by her win ¬ 
dow, and her eye fell on the bare branches cf the 
little rose-tree. Something stirred in her brain, a 
moment’s painful struggle to catch the fleeting thought, 
— one moment of that exquisitely painful wandering 
and groping darkness that assails the weak will and the 
faded memory, and Poll remembered. Ruth saw the 
keen agony of look that pierced her vague eyes, and 
died out almost as quickly, to renew its spark, the 
flushing and paling cheek, the tremulous lips, till 
those eyes brightened into certainty, and her cheek 
burned with a blush and a smile at once, and she 
spoke. 

“ Ruth,” said she, “ have you heard any thing from 
Sam?” 

“Yes,” said Ruth quietly, stepping to her drawer 
for the letter, which she handed to Poll.' Perhaps even 
you, refined and well-educated reader, may forgive its 
spelling and grammai* if I venture to transcribe it over 
her shoulder. 

At Sea. August 17th 

DEER Poll 

This is to say I am alive And well and Hoap you enjoy the 
laim blesing. we wayed Anker the first of June acording to 
orders, and maid a Steddy run acrost the atlantick till we 
stood off Sow-east for the cape. I now rite in hops of a Vesel 
pasing bye I rite for to tell you agane How much I keep a 
Btrate Course in my mind for the Port where you be Poll, my 
deer I think of you evrv Day and likewise when I keep Watch. 
I seem somehow to sight the old Cabbin, and the beach-gras 
j-shiniiP all round you, where you lay wlien I ketched you 


314 


somebody’s neighbors. 


up. deer I am no grate fist at ritin, but I want for to hev you 
know that I aint One of that sort o’ Craft that shifts their 
flaggs in knew Places. I be as trew to my bearin’s as our 
figger-head and I allays rekollects your Bewtiful hare when I 
see the llisin Sun acrost the sea. So no more at Pressent from 
your loving frend to Command Sam Bent 

Tears of pleasure filled Poll’s eyes as she read ; but, 
when she came to the last line, a sudden paleness 
swept across her face. She put up her hand gropingly 
tc her head : it was smooth and soft as a mouse-skin. 
“Euth,” said she eagerly, “where is it?” 

Euth had watched her, and answered, as if to a more 
definite question, “We had to cut it off when you were 
so sick. Poll: you wouldn’t have got well without.” 

Poll lay back in her chair, faint and sick. She said 
nothing at first; but the slow, hot tears rolled down 
her cheeks, and her wan face gathered a look of pain 
that was sad to see. The thought that smote her so 
bitterly was all of Sam: what would he say ? Her 
hair, that was ‘ ‘ the prettiest thing about her, ’ ’ that he 
thought of so far away, that he would want to see. 
How she must look! And with that came a strange 
desire to see herself. She sat up, and asked Euth to 
get her some tea. A little stratagem only ; for, when 
she left'the room. Poll got up and tottered to the glass 
that hung by the window. Poor Poll! the spectacle 
was not pleasant, —a thin white face, eyes bigger than 
ever, and the small head in that ugly transition from 
no hair, when any color of a coming crop seems only 
slaty gray fom its extreme shortness. Poll turned 
away : she was altogether humiliated. Surely she might 
give up Sam now and forever, for the only attraction 
she Lad possessed was gone, and she was actually re 


POLL JENNINGS S HAIR. 


315 


pulsive besides. She was too weak to be passionately 
disappointed; but she laid herself on the bed like a 
grieved and tired child, and cried herself to sleep. 

A vainer or a more selfish woman might have fretted 
and brooded over her trouble till the fever had j*e- 
lurned with fatal consequences; but Poll was too 
absorbed in Sam and his future to give so much 
thought to her own. She wept bitterly for days over 
her loss — and his, but from the first accepted it as a 
fact that Sam could not love her when he came back, 
and tried earnestly to accustom herself to the belief. 
And she succeeded very well till it occurred to her one 
day that he would marry somebody else, perhaps Ade¬ 
line, and then Poll found she had not sounded her 
trouble before: she could no more face that thought 
than she could the looking-glass, which she had never 
looked into from that day when she first saw herself. 
But the weeks did not stop to look at her, or to pity 
Sam Bent. 

Spring came stealing on with steady advance, and 
Poll’s naturally tenacious constitution revived in the 
soft airs and breezes. Her best consolation was her 
old out-of-door haunts; and, though she was now ha¬ 
bitually sad and silent, she did not mope or cry, though 
Ruth wondered why she withdrew herself more and 
more from her housekeeping duties, and even remon¬ 
strated with her, to no effect except saddening her 
DQore deeply, or bringing about a brief spasm of effort. 

But Poll might have looked into the glass by the 
middle of May with good effect. The long fever had 
either renovated some torpid function of her skin, or 
the long confinement to the house softened and soothed 
its Iiabitual inflammation; for now it was smooth and 


'316 


somebody’s neighbors. 


fair as a child’s, and every breeze brought to it a light 
bloom like a wild-rose petal. Her lips were reddened 
with healthy crimson, and her broad white brow had 
lost its burned and tanned look, for she had now to 
keep on her sun-bonnet, missing the heavy covering 
of her hair. Yet, to tell the truth, its loss was an 
embellishment; for her head was covered with thick 
soft rings and curls of the richest chestnut, glossy as 
the new skin of that nut, and fine as floss. Nothing 
prettier could have crowned her forehead, and shaded 
so beautifully with her eyes of the same tint, — a shade 
darker, but softened and deepened by suffering and 
emotion. There was nobody to tell Poll all this. 
Ruth was glad her red hair had gone; but she did 
not say so for fear of hurting her feelings, and old Abe 
did not understand any beauty but the type of sturdy 
figures, red cheeks, and black eyes,—a type rather 
forced on his admiration by repetition, till he pre¬ 
ferred it from habit. Adeline had been gone since 
March to see Nancy at Madison, and nobody ever 
came to the hut whom Poll was willing to see now : so 
she kept by herself, and waited with sad patience for 
Sam’s coming, that she might tell him what she 
expected, and have it over with. 

But one rarely does just what they mean to do be¬ 
forehand ; and “The Flying Cloud” was safe in New 
York, without Poll’s hearing of her arrival, for two 
days; and Poll herself, sitting in her low chair, read¬ 
ing, was “taken all aback,” as her father said, one 
bright June morning, by the heavy “thud” of a box 
set down on the sill of the door, and the quick jump of 
u man over it. 

“Why, Poll!” said Sam, after the first unresistec 


POLL JENNINGS’S HAIR. 


317 


kissing was over, holding her off to look at her, '‘1 
shouldn’t ha’ known you ! ” 

“No, I guess not,” said Poll, with quivering lips. 
“My hair is all gone, and — and Sam, I look so — I 
know ” — 

“Look so!” interrupted Sam: “I guess you do I 
Why, you’ve ben and got made over I ” 

“O Sam, don’t!” said she. Somehow it was 
harder to bear than she had expected; and the tears 
would come as she went on, “I know I am as humly 
as a crab ; but I sha’n’t feel hard about you, Sam. I 
know you can’t love me. I — I”— Here came a 
big sob. 

“ Jethunderation ! ” roared Sam, getting up his big¬ 
gest expletive, — “you, humly? You’re handsomer’n 
a picture this minnit. Why, Poll! ” 

•^Sam!” said she indignantly, “ don’t! Do you 
think I don’t know? ” 

“Yes, I do,” said Sam. “Hold hard a bit!” 
With which little exhortation he put her down, and 
went to his chest. Out of its capacious interior he 
drew a great bundle done up in^ folds of canvas, wads 
of cotton, and w:appings of Chinese paper, which at 
last peeled off under his clumsy fingers, and displayed 
the prettiest little dressing-case of black lacker, stud¬ 
ded with gold flowers and butterflies, its four drawers 
surmounted by an oval mirror in a frame of the same 
material. Sam triumphantly hoisted the whole of the 
affair on the top of the bureau, and, catching up Poll 
in his arms, held her up, and asked her to look. Oh, 
what a pretty vision was there! — a fair sweet face, 
with a deep glow on either cheek, its tender, panting 
mouth just parted over little snow-white teeth, its 


318 


somebody’s neighbors. 


great brown eyes moist and bright with the tears they 
had but just shed, and a head wreathed with silky 
ringlets whose coils caught the light with a bronze 
lustre as lovely as rare. The blue-check di'ess and 
white ruffle identified her. 

“ Why! ” said Poll with a little start. 

“You mean to say that a’n’t hansum? ” triumphant- 
l}'' asked Sam. 

“I didn’t know I looked like that” was the naive 
answer. 

“ Don’t you never look in the glass? ” retiuned he. 

“I haven’t since I was sick, but once,” said Poll, 
dropping her head. 

“Here’s a reef!” said Sam, light beginning to 
dawn on his mind. “Well, I am some took aback 
myself. I don’t think a poor seafarin’ man lilie me 
had oughter ask sech a three-decker to marry him. 
Poll, I b’lieve I must haul down my flag: I can’t 
expect you to keer for me now.” 

Poll turned round, and looked at him: there was no 
mistaking the sparkle of that deep gray eye. Poll 
dropped her head on Ms shoulder. She could hear the 
light laughter he had repressed now. 

“O Sam,” said she, nestling still closer to his 
cheek, “ I’m so glad! ” 

The black lacker dressing-case, somewhat worn and 
tarnished, stands now in the “spare chamber” of a 
tiny gray house at the foot of a Squamkeag Light¬ 
house ; for Ben Gould was drowned, and Sam got his 
situation. In the upper drawer of the pretty luxury 
a mass of red hair, long and wavy, is coiled away, and 
tied up with an Indian ribbon that smells of sandal • 


POLL JENNINGS’S HAUL 


819 


wood ; but Poll Jennings’s hair has grown again down 
to the hem of her dress, and its beautiful coil is as 
bright as ever, though no longer red. Sam offers to 
get a divorce now and then, on account of his ‘‘ hum- 
liness ; ” but at the last advices his offer was not yet 
accepted — “on account of the children,” Poll de¬ 
murely says. 


FREEDOM WHEELER’S CONTROVERSY 
WITH PROVIDENCE. 


A STORY OF OLD NEW ENGLAND. 

I. 

Aunt Huldy and Aunt Hannah sat in the kitchen, — 
Aunt Huldah bolt upright in a straight-backed wooden 
chair, big silver-bowed spectacles astride her high nose, 
sewing carpet-rags with such energy that her eyes 
snapped, and her brown, wrinkled fingers fiew back and 
forth like the spokes of a rapid wheel; Aunt Hannah 
in a low, creaky old rocker, knitting diligently but 
placidly, and rocking gently. You could almost hear 
her purr, and you wanted to stroke her; but Aunt 
Huldah ! — an electric machine could not be less desira¬ 
ble to handle than she, or a chestnut-burr pricklier. 

The back-log simmered and sputtered ; the hickory- 
sticks in front shot up bright, soft fiames ; and through 
the two low, green-paned windows the pallid sun of 
February sent in a pleasant shining on to the clean 
kitchen-fioor. Cooking-stoves were not made then, 
uoi Merrimac calicoes. The two old women had stuff 
petticoats and homespun short-gowns, clean mob-caps 
over their decent gray hair, and big blue-check aprons: 
hair-dye, wigs, flowered chintz, and other fineries had 
not reached the lonely farms of Dorset in those days, 
■620 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 321 


•■‘Spinsters'’ was not a mere name. The big wool 
wheel stood in one corner of the kitchen, and a little 
flax-whtel by the window. In summer both would be 
moved to the great garret, where it was cool and out of 
the way. 

“Gurus, ain’t it?” said Aunt Huldah. “Freedom 
never come home before, later’n nine-o’clock bell, and 
he was mortal mighty then; kep’ his tongue between 
his teeth same way he did to breakfast this mornin’. 
There’s suthin’ a-goin’ on, Hanner, you may depend 
on’t.” 

“ Mabbe he needs some wormwood-tea,” said Aunt 
Hannah, who, lil\:e Miss Hannah More, thought the only 
two evils in the world were sin and bile, and charitably 
preferred to lay things first to the physical disorder. 

“I du b’lieve, Hanner, you think ’riginal sin is 
nothin’ but a bad stomick.” 

“ Ef ’tain’t ’riginal sin, it’s actual transgression 
pretty often, Huldy,” returned the placid old lady with 
a gentle cackle. The Assembly’s Catechism had been 
ground into them both, as any old-fashioned New-Eng- 
lander will observe, and they quoted its forms of speech, 
as Boston people do Emerson’s Essays, by “an auto¬ 
matic action of the unconscious nervous centres.” 

The door opened, and Freedom walked in, scraping 
his boots upon the husk-mat, as a man will who has 
lived all his days with two old maids, but nevertheless 
spreading abroad in that clean kitchen an odor of the 
barn that spoke of “ chores,” yet did not disturb the 
accustomed nostrils of his aunts. He was a mkhlle- 
sized, rather “stocky” man, with a round head well 
wvered with tight-curling short hair, that revenged 
Itself for being cut too short to curl by standing on end 


322 


somebody’s neighbors. 


toward every point of the compass. You could not 
call him a common-looking man : something in his keen 
blue eye, abrupt nose, steady mouth, and square chin, 
always made a stranger look at him twice. Rugged 
sense, but more rugged obstinacy, shrewdness, keen 
perception, tempered somewhat by a certain kindliness 
that he himself felt to be his weak spot, — all these 
were to be read in Freedom Wheeler’s well-bronzed 
face, sturdy figure, positive speech, and blunt manner. 

He strode up to the fireplace, sat down in an arm¬ 
chair rudely shaped out of wood by his own hands, and 
plunged, after his fashion, at once into the middle of 
things. 

“Aunt Huldy and Aunt Hanner, I’m a-goin’ to git 
married.” The domestic bombshell burst in silence. 
Aunt Hannah dropped a stitch, and couldn’t see to pick 
it up for at least a minute. Aunt Huldah’s scissors 
snipped at the rags with a vicious snap, as if they were 
responsible agents, and she would end their proceedings 
then and there: presently she said, “Well, I am 
beat!” To which rather doubtful utterance Freedom 
made no reply, and the scissors snipped harder yet. 

Aunt Hannah recovered herself first. “Well, I’m 
real glad on’t,” purred she. It was her part to do the 
few amenities of the family. 

“ I dono whether I be or not, till I hear who ’tis,” 
dryly answered Aunt Huldah, who was obviously near 
akin to Freedom. 

“It’s Lowly Mallory,” said the short-spoken nephew, 
who by this time was whittling busily at a peg for his 
ox-yoke. 

“ Hu tell! ” said Aunt Hannah in her lingering, de- 
lilxirate tones, the words running into each other as 


FEEEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 

litie ?poke. “ She’s jest’s clever’s the day is long. 
You’ve done a good thing, Freedom, ’s sure’s you 
live.” 

“He might ha’ donewuss: that’s a fact.” And 
with this approval Freedom seemed satisfied; for he 
brushed his chips into the fire, ran his fingers through 
his already upright hair, eyed his peg with the keen 
aspect of a critic in pegs, and went off to the barn. 
He knew instinctively that his aunts must have a chance 
to talk the matter over. 

“ This is the beateree ! ” exclaimed Aunt Huldah as 
the door shut after him. “Lowly Mallory, of all 
creturs! Freedom’s as masterful as though he was 
the Lord above, by natur ; and ef he gets a leetle softly 
cretur like that, without no more grit’n a November 
chicken, he’ll ride right over every thing, and she won’t 
darst to peep nor*mutter a mite. Good land! ” 

“Well, well,” murmured Aunt Hannah, “she is a 
kind o’ feeble piece, but she’s real clever; an’ I dono 
but what it’s as good as he could do. Ef she was like 
to him, hard-headed, ’n’ sot in her way, I tell ye, 
Huldy, the fur’d fiy mightily; and it’s putty bad to 
have fight to home when there’s a fam’ly to fetch up.” 

“ Well, you be forecastin’, I must say, Hanner; but 
mabbe you’re abaout right. Besides, I’ve obsarved 
that folks will marry to suit themselves, not other peo¬ 
ple. An’ mabbe it’s the best way, seein’ it’s their own 
loss or likin’ more’n anybody else’s.” 

“But, Huldy, ’pears as if you’d forgot one thing: 
I expect we’d better be a-movin’ out into the old house, 
ef there’s goin’ to be more folks here.” 

“ Well, I declare ! I never thought on’t. ’Tis best, 
I guess. I wonder ef Freedom’s got the idee.” 


324 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“ Idono. But that hadn’t oughter make no differ¬ 
ence. There never was a house big enough for two 
families ; an’, ef we go before we’re obleeged to, it’s a 
sight better’n stayin’ till we be.” 

“That’s so, Hanner: you allers was a master-hand 
for tailin’ things right end foremost. I’ll sort out our 
linen right off, ’nd set by our furnitoor into the back- 
chamber. I guess the old house’ll want a leetle 
paintin’ an’ scrapin’. It’s dreadful lucky Amasy 
Flint’s folks moved to Noppit last week: seems as 
though there was a Providence about it.” 

“I shouldn’t wonder ef Freedom had give ’em a 
sort o’ hint to go, Huldy.” 

“ Well, you do beat all! I presume likely he did.” 

And Aunt Huldah picked up the rags at her feet, 
piled them into a splint basket, hung the shears on a 
steel chain by her side, and lifting her tall, gaunt figm-e 
from the chair, betook herself up stairs. But Aunt 
Hannah kept on knitting. She was the thinker, and 
Huldah the doer, of the family. Now her thoughts ran 
before her to the coming change, and she sighed; for 
she knew her nephew thoroughly, and she pitied the 
gentle, sweet nature that was to come in contact with 
his. 

Dear Aunt Hannah! She had never had any ro¬ 
mance in her own life: she did not know any thing 
about love, except as the placid and quite clear-eyed 
affection she felt for Freedom, who was her only near 
relation, and she saw little Lowly Mallory’s future on 
its hardest side. But she could not help it; and her 
nature was one that never frets against a difficulty, any 
more than tlie green turf beats against the rock to 
wnose edge it clings. 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 325 


So the slow, sad New-England spring, with storm 
and tempest, drifting snows and beating rains, worked 
its reluctant way into May. And when the lilacs 
were full of purple and white plumes, delicate as cut 
coral sprays, and luscious with satiating odor, and the 
heavy-headed daffodils thrust golden locks upward from 
the sward, Aunt Huldah and Aunt Hannah moved 
their wool-wheel and their flax-wheel, the four stiff- 
backed chairs, the settle and big red chest, the high 
four-post bedstead, and the two rush-bottomed rockers 
that had been Grandsir Wheeler’s, back into the small 
red house, for which these furnishings had been pur¬ 
chased sixty years before, laid the rag-carpet, that 
Aunt Huldah had sewed and dyed and woven, on the 
‘‘ settin’-room floor, and, with a barrel of potatoes and 
a keg of salt pork, went to housekeeping. 

There was some home-made linen belonging to them, 
and a few cups and dishes, also a feather-bed, and a 
pair of blankets. Freedom kept them supplied with 
what necessaries they wanted, and, though he was 
called “dreadful near” in the town, he was not an 
unjust man. His two aunts had taken him in charge, 
an orphan at six, and been faithful and kind to him 
all his days, and he could do no less than care for 
them now. Beside, they owned half the farm, and 
L.iough one was flfty-six, and the other flfty-eight, there 
was much hard work left in them yet. Aunt Huldah 
was a skilful tailoress, in demand for miles about; ^nd 
Aunt Hannah was the best sick-nurse in the county. 
They would not suffer: and, truth to tell, they rather 
enjoyed the independence of their own house ; for Free- 
lorn and Aunt Huldah were chips of the same block, 
and only Aunt Hannah’s constant, quiet restraint and 


826 


somebody’s neighbors. 


peace-making kept the family tolerably harmonious. 
And in the farmhouse a new reign began, — the reign 
of Queen Log. 

liOwly Mallory was a fragile, slender, delicate girl, 
with sweet gray eyes and plenty of brown hair; pale 
as a spring anemone, with just such faint pinkness ir. 
her lips and on her high cheek-bones as tints that pen ¬ 
sile, egg-shaped bud, when its 

“ Small flower layeth 
Its fairy gem beneath some giant tree ** 

on the first warm days of May. She had already the 
line of care that marks New-England women across the 
forehead, like a mark of Cain, — the signal of a life in 
which work has murdered health and joy and freedom ; 
for Lowly was the oldest of ten children, and her 
mother was bed-ridden. Lovina was eighteen now, 
and could take her place; and Lowly loved Freedom 
with the reticent, undemonstrative affection of her race 
and land: moreover, she was glad of change, of rest. 
Rest!—much of that awaited her! Freedom’s first 
step after the decorous wedding and home-coming was 
to buy ten cows — he had two already — and two dozen 
new milk-pans. 

“I calkerlate we can sell a good lot of butter ’n’ 
cheese down to Dartford, Lowly,” he said, on intro¬ 
ducing her to the new dairy he had fitted up at one end 
of the woodshed; and, if the gentle creature’s heart 
sank within her at the prospect, she did not say so, and 
Fi’eedom never asked how she liked it. He was “ mas¬ 
terful” indeed; and having picked out Lowly from all 
the other Dorset girls, because she was a still and hard¬ 
working maiden, and would neither rebel agauist nor 


FEEEDOM wheeler's CONTROVERSY. 327 


criticise his edicts, he took it for granted things would 
go on as he wished. 

Poor little Lowly! Her simple, tender heart went 
out to her husband like a vine feeling after a trellis; 
and, even when she found it was only a bowlder that 
cliilled and repelled her slight ardors and timid ca¬ 
resses, she did still what the vine does, —flung herself 
ac.X)S3 and along the granite faces of the rock, and 
turned her trembling blossoms sunward, where life and 
light were free and sure. 

Aunt Huldah and Aunt Hannah soon grew to be her 
ministering angels ; and if they differed from the gold¬ 
haired, pink-enamelled, straight-nosed creations of Fra 
Angelico, and would have flgm-ed ill, — in their short- 
gowns and mob-caps, — bowing before an ideal Ma¬ 
donna, Lowly wanted no better tendance and providing 
than they gave her, when in due season there appeared 
in the farmhouse a red and roaring baby, evidently pat¬ 
terned after his father, morally as well as physically; 
the white down on his raw pink head twisting into tight 
kinks, and his stubby flsts set in as firm a grasp as 
ever Freedom’s big brown paws were. Lowly was a 
happy little woman : she had loved children always, and 
here was one all her own. Two weeks were dreamed 
away in rest and rapture ; then Freedom began to bus¬ 
tle and fret, and growl about the neglected dairy, and 
the rusty pork, and the hens that wanted care. 

“ Don’t ye s’pose she’ll git ’raound next week. Aunt 
Huldy? Things is gittin’ dredful behind-hand! ” 
Freedom had left the bedroom-door open on purpose. 
Aunt Huldah got up, and shut it with a slam, while 
he went on: “Them hens had oughter be set, ’n' I 
never git time to be a half a day prowlin’ araound after 


328 


somebody’s neighbors. 


*em : they’ve stole their nests, I expect, the hull tribe ; 
’nd Ilepsy don’t make butter to compare along-side o' 
Lowly’s ; then there’s that ’ere pork a-gittin’ rusty, ’n’ 
Aunt Hanner, she’s over to Mallory’s, nussin’ Loviny, 
so’s’t I can’t call on you; ’n’ it doos seem’s thougU 
two weeks was a plenty for well folks to lie in bed.” 

Here Aunt Iluldah exploded: “Freedom AVheeler, 
you hain’t got a mite o’ compassion into ye! Lowly 
ain’t over ’n’ above powerful, anyway; she’ll break 
clea^^down ef she ain’t real keerful; mabbe I ain’t” — 

The shutting of the back-door stopped her tirade. 
While she hunted in a table-drawer for her thimble, 
Freedom had coolly walked off: he did not choose to 
argue the subject. But next day Lowly got up, and 
was dressed. There were two lines across the sad, low 
forehead now, but she went about her work in silence. 
There is a type of feminine character that can endure 
to the edge of death, and endure silently, and that 
character was eminently hers. 

“Good little feller, so he was, as ever was; there, 
there, there! should be cuddled up good ’n’ warm, so 
he should,” Aunt Hannah purred to the small boy a 
mouth after, seeing him for the first time, as she had 
been taking care of Lovina Mallory through a low 
fever, when he was bom. 

“ What be ye a-goin’ to call him. Freedom? ” 

“I calkerlate he’ll be baptized Shearjashub. There’s 
alius ben a Shear jashub ’nd a Freedom amongst our 
folks. I’ve heered Grandsir Wheeler tell on’t more’n 
forty times, how the’ was them two names away back 
as fur as there’s gravestones to tell on’t down to Litch¬ 
field meetin’-house, ’nd back o’ that in the old grave¬ 
yard to Har’ford. I expect this here feller’ll be called 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 329 


Shearjashub, ’nd the next one Freedom: that’s the 
way they’ve alius run.” 

“For the land’s sakes ! ” sputtered Aunt Huldah. 
“ I was in hopes you hadn’t got that notion inter youi 
head. Why can’t ye call the child some kind o’ pootty 
Scripter name, like David, or Samwell, or Eber, ’nd 
not set him a-goin’ with a kite’s tail like that tied on 
him?” 

“I guess what’s ben good ’nough for our folks time 
out o’ mind’ll be good ’nough for him,” stiffly answered 
Freedom. And Aunt Huldah, with inward rage, ac¬ 
cepted the situation, and went out to the barn to help 
Lowly set some refractory hens, where she found the 
poor little woman, with suspiciously red eyes, counting 
eggs on a corner of the hay-mow. 

“ Hanner’s come. Lowly,” said she, “so she’s got 
baby, ’nd I come out to give ye a lift about them hens. 
I’ve ben a-dealin’ with Freedom about that there 
child’s name ; but you might jest as well talk to White 
Rock ; I will say for’t he’s the sottest man I ever see. 
I b’lieve he’d set to to fight his own way out with the 
Lord above, if he hed to.” 

Lowly gave a little plaintive smile, but, after the 
manner of her sex, took her husband’s part. “Well, 
you see. Aunt Huldy, it’s kind o’ nateral he should 
want to foller his folks’s ways. I don’t say but what 
I did want to call baby Eddard, for my little brothei 
that died. I set great store by Eddy,” — here Low¬ 
ly’s checked apron wiped a certain mist from her 
patient eyes, — “and ’twould ha’ been my mind to 
call him for Eddy ; but Freedom don’t feel to, and you 
know Scripter says wives must be subject to husbands.” 

“ Hm! ” sniffed Aunt Huldah, who was lost to flie 


S30 


somebody’s neighbors. 


strong-minded party of her sex by being born before 
its creation, — “ Scripter has a good deal to answer 
for! ’ ’ with which enigmatical and shocking remark, 
she turned, and pounced upon the nearest hen. Poor 
old hen! She evidently represented a suffering and 
abject sex to Aunt Iluldah, and exasperated her ac¬ 
cordingly. Do I not know ? Have not I, weakly and 
meekly protesting against their ways and works, also 
been hustled and bustled by the Rights Women? — 
even as this squawking, crawking, yellow biddy was 
fluffed and cuffed and shaken up by Aunt Huldah, and 
plunged at last, in spite of nips and pecks and screaks, 
into the depths of a barrel, the head wedged on above 
her, and the unwilling matron condemmed to solitary 
confinement, with hard labor, on thirteen eggs ! 

So Freedom had his way, of course; and Lowly 
went on, with the addition of a big naughty baby to 
take care of, waking before light to get her “ chores ” 
out of the way, prepare breakfast, skim cream, strain 
new milk and set it, scald pans, churn, work and put 
down butter, feed pigs and hens, bake, wash, iron, 
scrub, mend, make, nurse baby, fetch wood from the 
shed, and water from the well, — a delicate, bending, 
youthful figure, with hands already knotted, and shoul¬ 
ders bowed by hard work ; her sole variety of a week¬ 
day being when one kind of pie gave place to another, 
or when the long winter evenings, with dim light of 
tallow candles, made her spinning shorter, and her 
sewing longer. 

For Sundays were scarce a rest: breakfast was as 
early, milk as abundant, on that day as on any other • 
and then there was a five-mile ride to meeting, for 
which iimple lunch must be ‘ prepared, since they 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 331 

staid at noon; there was baby to dress, and her own 
Sunday clothes to put on, in which stiff and unaccus¬ 
tomed finery she sat four mortal hours, with but the 
brief interval of nooning, on a hard and comfortless 
seat, and then home again to get the real dinner of 
the day, to feed her pigs and hens, to get the clamor¬ 
ous baby quiet: this was hardly rest. And summ^^i* 
— that brings to overstrained nerves and exhausted 
muscles the healing of sun, sweet winds, fresh air, 
and the literal ‘ ‘ balm of a thousand flowers ’ ’ — only ^ 
heralded to her the advent of six strong hungry men 
at haying, shearing, and reaping time, with extra 
meals, increased washing, and, of course, double 
fatigue. Yet this is the life that was once the doom 
of all New-England farmers’ wives; the life that sent 
them to early graves, to mad-houses, to suicide; the 
life that is so beautiful in the poet’s numbers, so terri¬ 
ble in its stony, bloomless, oppressive reality. It 
would have been hard to tell if Lowly was glad or 
sorry, when, on a soft day in June, Aunt Hannah, 
this time at home, was hurriedly called from the red 
house to officiate as doctor and nurse both at the arriv¬ 
al of another baby. This time. Freedom growled and 
scowled by himself in the kitchen, instead of conde¬ 
scending to look at and approve the child; for it was 
a girl. 

Aunt Hannah chuckled in her sleeve. Freedom had 
intimated quite frankly that this child was to be 
called after himself, nothing doubting but that another 
boy was at hand ; and great was his silent rage at the 
disappointment. 

“ Imperdent, ain’t it?” queried Aunt Huldah, who 
sat by the kitchen-fire stirring a mess of Indian-meaJ 



332 


somebody’s neighbors. 


porridges. ‘ ‘ To think it darst to be a girl when ye waa 
so sot on its turnin’ out a boy ! Seems as though Provi¬ 
dence got the upper hand on ye, Freedom, arter all! ” 

But Freedom never gave retort to Aunt Iluldah. He 
had been brought up in certain superstitions, quite 
obsolete now, about respecting his elders ; and, though 
the spirit was wanting sometimes, the letter of the law 
had observance. He could rage at Aunt Huldah pri¬ 
vately, but before her he held his tongue. It was his 
wife who suffered as the sinner should for disturbing 
his plans in this manner. He snubbed her, he despised 
the baby, and forthwith bought two more cows, with 
the grim remark, ‘‘Ef I’ve got to fetch up a pack o’ 
girls, I guess I’d better scratch around ’n’ make a 
leetle more money.” 

But, if the new baby was an eyesore to Freedom, 
she was a delight to Lowly. All the more because 
her father ignored and seemed to dislilvc her, the afflu¬ 
ent mother-heart flowed out upon her. She was a coo¬ 
ing, clinging, lovely little creature; and when, worn 
out with her day’s work. Lowly had at last coaxed her 
cross, teething boy to sleep, and she sat down in the 
old creaky rocker to nurse and tend her baby, the 
purest joy that earth knows stole over her like 
the tranquil breath of heaven. The touch of tiny An¬ 
gers on her breast; the warm shining head against her 
heart; the vague baby-smile and wandering eyes that 
neither tlie wistfulness of doubt, the darkness of grief, 
nor the fire of passion, clouded as yet; the inarticulate 
murmurs of satisfaction ; the pressure of the little help¬ 
less form upon her lap; the silent, ardent tenderness 
that awoke and burned in her own heart for this pre- 
cicus creature, — all made for the weary woman a daily 


FKEEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 333 


oasis of peace and beauty that perhaps saved her 
brain from that common insanity we call nervousness, 
and her body from utter exhaustion ; for happiness is 
a medicine cf God’s own sending: no quack has ever 
pretended to dispense its potent and beneficent cordial; 
and the true, honest physician, he whose very profes¬ 
sion is the nearest approach to that of the Saviour and 
Healer of men, knows well that one drop of the only 
elixir he cannot bring outweighs all he can. Shearja- 
shub grew up to the height of three years, and the baby 
toddled about, and chattered like a merry chipping- 
bird, when, one Fast Day morning. Lowly staid at 
home from meeting with a sinking heart, and Aunt 
Hannah was sent for again. Freedom went off to 
hear the usual sermon, on a pretence of taking Shear- 
jashub out of the way ; he being irrepressible except by 
his father, whom alone he feared. Mother and aunts 
the youngster manfully defied and scorned; but the 
very sound of his father’s steps reduced him to silence. 
Shingles were not out of fashion then as a means of 
discipline; and the hot tingle of the application dwelt 
vividly in the boy’s mind ever since he had been 
“tuned mightily,” as his father phrased it, for dis¬ 
obedience and obstinacy; Aunt Huldah’s comment at 
the first punishment being, ‘ ‘ Hemlock all three on 
’em,—man an’ boy an’ shingle: it’s tough to tell 
which’ll beat.” 

Little Love staid at home with old Hepsy, and prat¬ 
tled all day long in the kitchen. Lowly could not 
spare the sweet voice from her hearing, and she had 
need of all its comfort: for, when Freedom came home 
from Dorset Centre, a great girl-baby lay by Lowly in 
.he bed ; and if its welcome from the mother had been 


334 


somebody’s neighbors. 


bitter tears, whose traces still shone on her wan face, 
from the father came far bitterer words, — curses in all 
but the wording ; for Freedom was a “ professor,” and 
profanity was a sin. Mint and anise and cumin he 
tithed scrupulously ; but mercy and judgment fled from 
him, and hid their shamefaced heads. Aunt Huldah 
and Aunt Hannah made them tansy-pudding that day, 
after the custom of their forefathers, and ate it with 
unflinching countenances; but Lowly fasted in her 
secret soul; and since her husband grimly remarked, 
“’Tain’t nothin’ to me what ye call her: gals ain’t 
worth namin’ anyhow!” the new baby was baptized 
Marah, and behaved herself neither with the uproarious 
misconduct of Shearjashub, nor the gentle sweetness of 
Love, but, quite in deflance of her name, was the mer¬ 
riest, maddest little grig that could be, afraid of noth¬ 
ing and nobody, but as submissive to Lovey as a lamb 
could be, and full of fight when Shear jashub intruded 
himself on her domains. For this baby was a sturdy, 
rosy girl of three, before the fourth appeared. Lowly 
by this time had fallen into a listless carelessness 
toward her husband, that was simply the want of all 
spring in a long down-trodden heart. Lovey alone 
could stir her to tears or smiles. Marah tired and 
tormented her with her restless and overflowing vitality, 
though she loved her dearly; and her boy was big 
enough now to cling a little to “ mother,” and reward 
her for her faithful patience and care : but Lovey was 
the darling of her secret heart; and, being now five 
years old, the little maid waited on mother like a 
cheiub on a saint, ran of errands, wound yarn, and did 
many a slight task in the kitchen that saved Lowly’s 
bent and weary fingers. 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 335 

It was with an impotent rage beyond speech that Free¬ 
dom took the birth of another daughter, — a frail, tiny 
creature, trembling and weak as a new-born lamb in a 
snow-drift, but for that very reason rousing afresh in 
Lowly’s breast the eternal floods of mother-love, the 
only love that never fails among all earthly passions, 
the only patience that is never weary, the sole true and 
abiding trust for the helpless creatures who come into 
life as waifs from the great misty ocean to And a shel¬ 
ter or a grave. Lowly was not only a mother accord¬ 
ing to the flesh, — for there are those whose maternity 
goes no further, and there are childless women who 
have the motherliness that could suffice for a countless 
brood, — but she had, too, the real heart: she clung to 
her weakling with a fervor and assertion that disgusted 
Freedom, and astounded Aunt Huldah, who, like the 
old Scotch woman, sniffed at the idea of children in 
heaven: “No, no! a hantle o’ weans there! an’ me 
that could never abide bairns onywhere ! I’ll no believe 
it.” 

“It doos beat all, Hanner, to see her take to that 
skinny, miser’ble little crittur! The others was kind 
t)’ likely, all on ’em ; but this is the dreadfulest weakly, 
peeked thing I ever see. I should think she’d be sick 
on’t.” 

“I expect mothers — anyway them that’s real 
motherly, Iluldy — thinks the most of them that needs 
it the most. I’ve seen women with children quite a 
spell now, bein’ out nussin’ T-ound, an’ I allers notice 
that the sickly ones gets the most lovin’ an’ cuddlin’. 
I s’pose it’s the same kind o feelin’ the Lord hez for 
sinners: they want him a sight more’n the rignieous 
dc ” 


somebody’s neighbors. 


m 


“ Why, Hanner Wheeler, what be you a-thiiikin 
of! Where’s your Catechis’ ? Ain’t all men by natei 
under the wrath an’ cuss o’ God ’cause they be fallen 
sinners? And here you be a-makin’ out he likes ’em 
better’n good folks.” 

“ W'ell, Huldy, I warn’t a-thinkin’ of Catechisn*: 1 
was a-thinkin’ about what it sez in the Bible.” 

Here the new baby cried; and Aunt Huldah, con¬ 
founded but unconvinced, gave a loud sniff, and earned 
off Shearjashub and Marah to the red house, where 
their fights and roars and general insubordination soon 
restored her faith in the Catechism. 

Lowly got up very slowly from little Phoebe’s birth; 
and Freedom grumbled loud and long over the expense 
of keeping Hepsy a month in the kitchen. But his wife 
did not care now: a dumb and sudden endurance pos¬ 
sessed her. She prayed night and morning, with a cer¬ 
tain monomaniac persistence, that she and Lovey and 
the baby might die ; but she did her work just as faith¬ 
fully and silently as ever, and stole away at night to lie 
down on the little cot-bed in the back-chamber by 
Lovey and Marah, her hot cheek against the cool, soft 
face of her darling, and the little hand hid deep in her 
bosom, for an hour of rest and sad peace. 

Freedom, meanwhile, worked all day on the farm, 
and carried Shearjashub, whose oppressive name had 
lapsed into Bub, into wood and field with him ; taught 
him to drive the oxen, to hunt hens’ nests in the barn 
on the highest mow, to climb trees, in short to risk his 
neck however he could “ to make a man of him ; ” and 
jhe boy learned, among other manly ways, a sublime 
contempt for “gals,” and a use of all the forcible 
vords oerraitted to masculine tongues. But Shear- 


FREEDOM wheeler's CONTROVERSY. 387 


jashub’s sceptre was about to tremble. Little Phoebe 
had lingered in this world through a year of fluttering 
life, when another baby was announced ; but this time it 
was a boy! — small even to Phoebe’s first size, pallid, 
lifeless almost, but still a boy. 

“By Jinks!” exclaimed Freedom, his hard face 
glowing with pleasure. “I told ye so. Aunt Huldy! 
There’s bound to be a Freedom Wheeler in this house, 
whether or no.” 

“ Hm ! ” said Aunt Huldah. “You call to mind old 
Hepsy Tinker, don’t ye ?—she that was a-goin’ to Har’- 
ford a Tuesday, Providence permittin’, an’ Wednesday 
whether or no. Mabbe ye’ll live to wish ye hadn’t fit 
with the Lord’s will the way ye hev.” 

“ I’ve got a boy, anyhow,” was the grim exultant 
answer. “And he’ll be Freedom Wheeler afore night; 
for I’m a-goin’ to fetch the parson right off.” 

Strenuously did Parson Pitcher object to private 
baptism: but he was an old man now; and Freedom 
threatened that he would go to Hartford and fetch the 
Episcopal minister, if Parson Pitcher refused, and the 
old doctor knew he was quite sure to keep to his word : 
so, with a groan at the stiff-necked brother, he got out 
his cloak and hat, and rode home with victorious Free¬ 
dom to the farmhouse. Here the punch-bowl was 
made ready on a stand in the parlor, and a fire kindled 
on the hearth, for it was a chilly April day ; and from 
the open door into Lowly’s bedroom the wailing day- 
old baby was brought, and given into its father’s arms, 
B mere scrid and atom of humanity, but a boy. 

The rite was over, the long prayer said, and Freedom 
strode into the chamber to lay his namesake beside its 
mother ; but, as he stooped, the child quivered suddenly 


338 


somebody’s neighbors. 


all over, gasped, opened its half-shut eyes glazed with 
a fatal film, and then closed the pallid, violet-shadowed 
lids forever. 

The next entry in the family Bible was, — 
^‘Freedom. Born April 11 ; died same day.” 

“ Well, he hain’t got nobody but the Lord to querrel 
with this bout!” snapped Aunt Iluldah. “ He’s had 
his way, ’nd now see what come on’t! ” 

Lowly got up again, after the fashion of her kind, 
without a murmur. She felt her baby’s death, she 
mourned her loss, she was sorry for Freedom. She 
had loved him once dearly; and, if she had known it. 
Freedom loved her as much as he could any thing but 
himself : but it was not his way to show affection, even 
to his boy; as much of it as ever came to the surface 
was a rough caress offered now and then to Lowly, — a 
usage that had died out, and died with no mourning on 
either side. But as there is a brief sweet season often¬ 
times in our bitter climate, that comes upon the sour 
and angry November weather like a respite of execu¬ 
tion, a few soft, misty, pensively sweet days, when the 
sun is red and warm in the heavens, the dead leaves 
give out their tender and melancholy odor, and the 
lingering birds twitter in the pine-boughs as if they 
remembered spring, so there came to Lowly a late and 
last gleam of tranquil pleasure. 

Aunt Huldah brought it about, for her tongue never 
failed her for fear. She caught Freedom by himself 
one day, looking like an ill-used bull-dog, all alone in 
the barn, setting some new rake-teeth. 

“I’vehed it on my mind quite a spell. Freedom,” 
began the valorous old woman, “ to tell ye, that, ef ye 
'^xpect Lowly is ever a-goin’ to hev a rousin’ hearty 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 339 


child ag’in, you’ll hev to cosset her up some. She 
ain’t like our folks.” 

“That’s pretty trew, Aunt Huldy,” was the bitter 
interruption. 

“ She ain’t a nether millstone, thet’s a fact,” an¬ 
swered Aunt Iluldah with vigor; “nor she ain’t 
bend leather, by a good sight: she’s one o’ the weakly, 
meekly sort; ’nd you can’t make a whistle out o’ a 
pig’s tail, I’ve heerd father say, ’nd you no need to 
try: no more can ye make a stubbid, gritty cretur out 
o’ Lowly. She’s good as gold: but she’s one o’ them 
that hankers arter pleasantness, an’ lovin’, an’ sich; 
they’re vittles an’ drink to her, I tell ye. You an’ I 
can live on pork an’ cabbage, and sass each other con- 
tinooal, without turnin’ a hair; but Lowly won’t stan’ 
it; ’nd, ef ye expect this next baby to git along, I tell 
ye it’s got to be easy goin’ with her. You want to 
keep your fight with the Lord up, I s’pose : you’re sot 
on hevin’ another Freedom Wheeler? ” 

“I be,” was the curt response. But though Aunt 
Huldah turned her back upon him without further en¬ 
couragement, and marched through the ranks of “ gar- 
den-sass ” back to the house, her apron over her head, 
and her nose high in air, like one who snuffeth the bat- 
le fiom afar, her pungent words fell not to the ground. 
Freedom j^erceived the truth of what she said, and his 
uneasy conscience goaded him considerably as to past 
opportunities; but he was an honest man, and, when he 
^iaw a thing was to be done, he did it. Next day he 
Drought Lowly a new rocking-chair from the Centre .- 
he modified his manners daily. He helped her lift 
the heavy milk-pails, he kept her wood-pile by the 
thed-door well heaped, and was even known to swing 


340 


SOMEBODY S NEIGHBOES. 


the great dinner-pot off the crane, if it was full and 
weighty. 

“For the land sakes ! ” exclaimed Aunt Hannah) 
“what’s a-comin’ to Freedom? He does act halfway 
decent, Huldah.” 

Aunt Huldah shook her cap-muffle up and down, 
and looked sagacious as an ancient owl. “That’s me I 
I gin it to him, I tell ye, Hanner! Lowly wants 
cossetin’, ’nd handlin’ tender-like, or we’ll be havin’ 
more dyin’ babies ’round. I up an’ told him so 
Wednesday mornin’ out in the bam, ’s true’s I’m 
alive.” 

“I’m glad on’t! I’m real glad on’t!” exclaimed 
Aunt Hannah. “You done right, Huldy. But, massy 
^ to me ! how darst ye ? ” 

/ “Ho!” sniffed Aunt Huldah. “Ef you think I’m 

afeard o’ Freedom, you’re clean mistook. I’ve spanked 
him too often,’n’ I wish to goodness I’d ha’ spanked 
him a heap more : he’d ha’ ben a heap the better for’t. 
You reklect I had the tunin’ of him, Hanner? You 
was alius a-nussin’ mother: Freedom come to us jest 
as she got bedrid. Land 1 what a besom he was! 
His folks never tuned him, nor never took him to do, 
a mite. I hed it all to do, ’nd my mind misgives me 
now I didn’t half do it. ‘Jest as the twig is bent the 
tree’s inclined,’ ye know it says in the Speller.” 

“ But, Huldy, ’tain’t so easy bending a white-oak 
staddle ; ’specially ef it’s got a six-years’ growth.” 

“Well, I got the hang of him, anyhow; ’nd he’ll 
hear to me most alius, whether he performs accordin’, 
w not.” 

“ Mabbe it’s too late, though, now, Huldy.” 

“Law, don’t ye croak, Hanner. The little cretur’l' 
hev a pleasant spell anyhow, for a while.” 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 341 


And so she did. Lowly’s ready heart responded tc 
sunshine as a rain-drenched bird will, preening its 
feathers, shaking its weary wings, welceming the warm 
gladness with faint chirps and tiny brightening eyes, 
and then — taking flight. 

A long and peaceful winter passed away, and in early 
May another boy was born : alas, it was another waxen, 
delicate creature. The old parson was brougi^t in 
haste to baptize it. The pallid mother grew more white 
all through the ceremony, but nobody noticed her. 
She took the child in her arms with a wan smile, and 
tried to call it by name: “Free,” was all she said. 
Her arms closed about it with a quick shudder and 
stringent grasp ; her lips parted wide. Lowly and her 
baby were both “free,” for its last breath fluttered 
upward with its mother’s; and in the family Bible 
there was another record : — 

“ Lowly Wheeler. Died May 3.” 

“ Freedom Wheeler. Born May 3, died same day.” 

“Well,” said Aunt Huldah, as they came back to 
the ghastly quiet of the shut and silent house, after 
laying Lowly and her boy under the ragged turf of 
Dorset graveyard, “I guess Freedom’ll give up his 
wrastle with Providence now, sence the Lord’s took 
wife, *ud baby, ’nd all.” 

“I don’t feel sure of that,” answered Aunt Han¬ 
nah, for once sarcastic. 


II. 


Aunt Huldah and Aunt Hannah took Love and 
Phoebe over to the red house to live with them; for 
mey found a little note in Lowly’s Bible requesting 


342 


somebody’s neighboks 


them to take charge of these two, and their father did 
not object. Phoebe was a baby still, hopelessly tec¬ 
hie : she could not stand alone, though she was more 
than two years old; and Love was devoted to her. 
Bub and Marah could ‘ ‘ fend for themselves ; ’ ’ and 
the old woman, who came as usual in Lowly’s frequent 
absences from the kitchen, had promised to stay all 
summer. But, before the summer was over, Phoebe 
faded away like a tiny snow-wreath in the sun, and 
made a third little grave at her mother’s feet; and 
Lovey grieved for her so bitterly, that Aunt Hannah 
insisted she should stay with them still, and made her 
father promise she should be their little girl always; 
certain forebodings of their own as to the future, 
prompting them to secure her a peaceful home while 
they lived. 

As for Freedom, if he mourped Lowly, it was with 
no soft or sentimental grief, but with a certain resent¬ 
ful aching in his heart, and a defiant aspect of soul 
toward the divine will that had overset his intentions 
and desires, — a feeling that deepened into savage 
determination; for this man was made of no yielding 
stuff. Obstinacy stood him in stead of patience, an 
active instead of a passive trait; and in less than six 
months after Lowly’s death he was “published,” ac¬ 
cording to the custom of those days ; ■ the first intima¬ 
tion his aunts or his children had of the impending 
crisis being this announcement from the pulpit by 
Parson Pitcher, that “Freedom Wheeler of this town, 
and Melinda Bassett of Hartland, intend marriage.” 

Aunt Huldah looked at Aunt Hannah from under 
her poke-bonnet with the look of an enraged hen ; her 
?ap-frill trembled with indignation : and Lovey shrank 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 843 


up closer to Aunt Hannah than before ; for she saw two 
tears rise to her kind old eyes as they met Huldah’s, 
and she loved Aunt Hannah with all her gentle little 
soul. As for Freedom, he sat bolt upright, and per¬ 
fectly unmoved. 

“Set his face as a flint!” raged Aunt Huldah as 
soon as she got out of church, and went to take her 
“noon-spell” in the graveyard, where the basket of 
doughnuts, cheese, pie, cake, and early apples, was 
usually unpacked on the stone wall on pleasant Sun¬ 
days, and the aunts sitting on a tombstone, and the 
children on the grass, ate their lunch. To-day Lovey 
and Marah were left on the stone to eat their fill. Bub 
had gone to the spring for water, and Freedom nobody 
knew where; while the aunts withdrew to ‘ ‘ talk it 
over.” 

“ Yis,” repeated Aunt Huldah, “set his face like a 
flint. I tell ye he hain’t got no more feelin’ than a 
cherub on a tombstone, Hanner! She ain’t cold in her 
grave afore he’s off to Hartland, buy in’ calves. Calves ! 
I guess likely, cornin’ home jest as plausible as a pass- 
nip : ‘ I sha’n’t make no butter this year: so I bought a 
lot o’ calves to raise.’ Ho ! heifer-calves every one on 
’em, mind ye. Ef we hadn’t ha’ ben a pair o’ fools, we 
should ha’ mistrusted suthin’. Ef that gal’s Abigail 
Bassett’s darter, things’ll fly, I tell ye.” And here 
Aunt Huldah blew a long breath out, as if her steam 
was at high pressure, and could not help opening a 
valve for relief; and wise Aunt Hannah seized the 
chance to speak. 

“Well, Huldy, I declare I’m beat myself; but we 
can’t help it. I must say I looked forrard to the time 
when he would do it; but I didn’t reelly expect it jest 


344 


somebody’s neighbors. 


yet. We’ve got Lovey anyway ; and, if Melindy £,in’ 
a pootty capable woman, she’ll hev her hands full with 
Bub and Marah.” 

“ Thet’s a fact,” returned Aunt Huldah, whose in¬ 
most soul rejoiced at the prospect of Bub’s contuma¬ 
ciousness under new rule ; for he was not a small boy 
any more, and shingles were in vain, though he still 
made a certain outward show of obedience. Marah, 
loo, was well calculated to be a thorn in the flesh of 
any meek step-mother, with her high spirits, untamed 
temper, and utter wilfulness ; and Aunt Huldah, whose 
soul was sore, — not because of Freedom’s marriage, 
for she recognized its necessity, but because of its 
indecent haste, which not only seemed an insult to 
gentle Lowly, whom Aunt Huldah had loved dearly, but 
a matter of talk to all the town where the Wheelers had 
been respected for many a long year, — Aunt Huldah 
rejoiced in that exasperated soul of hers at a prospect 
of torment to the woman who stepped into Lowly’s 
place quite unconscious of any evil design or desire on 
the part of her new relatives. 

But it was no meek step-mother whom Freedom 
brought home from a very informal wedding, in his 
old wagon, some three weeks after. Melinda Bassett 
was quite capable of holding her own, even with Aunt 
Huldah, — a strapping, buxom, rosy-faced girl, with 
abundant rough dark hair, and a pair of bright, quick, 
dark eyes, an arm of might in the dairy, and a power 
of work and management that would have furnished 
forth at least five feeble pieces like Lowly. Freedom 
Boon found he had inaugurated Queen Stork. Bub 
was set to rights as to his clothes, and “ pitched into,” 
as he sulkily expressed it, in a way that gave him a 


FREEDOM WHEELER’S CONTROVERSY. 345 


new and unwilling respect for the other sex; and 
Marah entered at once into an alliance, offensive and 
defensive, with the new “ mammy ; ” for Melinda was 
pleasant and cheerful when things went right, and gen¬ 
erally meant they should go right. She was fond of 
children, too, when they were “ pretty behaved ; ” and 
Marah was bright enough to find out, with the rapid 
perception of a keen-witted child, that it was much 
better for her to he pretty behaved than otherwise. 

But Freedom — it was new times to him to have 
his orders unheeded, and his ways derided. He had 
been lord and master in his house a long time; but 
here was a capable, plucky, courageous, and cheery 
creature, who made no bones of turning him out of her 
dominions when he interfered, or ordering her own 
ways without his help at all. 

‘ ‘ Land of Goshen ! ’ ’ said Melinda to the wondering 
Aunt Hannah, “do you s’pose I’m goin’ to hev a 
man tewin’ round in my way all the time, jest cos he’s 
my husband? I guess not. I know how to ’tend to 
my business, and I expect to ’tend right up to it: 
moreover I expect he’ll tend to his’n. When I get 
a-holt of his plough, or fodder his team, or do his chop- 
pin’, ’ll be time enough for him to tell me how to work 
butter, ’n’ scald pans. I ain’t nobody’s fool, I tell ye. 
Aunt Hanner.” 

“I’m glad oif’t, I’m dredful glad on’t! ” growled 
Aunt Huldah, when she heard of this manifesto. 

“ That’s the talk : she’ll straighten him out, I’ll bet 
ye ! Ef poor Lowly’d had that spunk she might ha’ 
been livin’ to-day. But I guess she’s better off,” sud¬ 
denly wound up Aunt Huldah, remembering her Cate¬ 
chism, no doubt, as she walked off muttering, “Are at 


346 


somebody's neighbors 


their death made perfect in holiness, and do imme¬ 
diately pass into glory,” — an assurance that has ud- 
held many a tried and weary soul more conversant 
with the language of the Assembly of Divines than 
that of their Lord and Head; for in those old days 
this formula of the faith was ground into every infant 
memory, though the tender gospel words were com¬ 
paratively unknown. 

So the first year of the new reign passed on; and in 
the next February Freedom was mastered by a more 
stringent power than Melinda, for he fell ill of old- 
fashioned typhus-fever, a malign evil that lights down 
here and there in lonely New-England farmhouses, 
utterly regardless of time or place ; and in a week this 
strong man was helpless, muttering delirious speech, 
struggling for life with the fire that filled his veins and 
consumed his fiesh. Aunt Hannah came to his aid, 
and the scarce neighbors did what they could for him. 
Brother-farmers snored away the night in a chair beside 
his bed, and said that they had “ sot up with Freedom 
Wheeler last night,”—ministrations worse than use¬ 
less, but yet repeated as a sort of needful observance. 
And at the end of the first week Aunt Hannah was 
called away to the “up-chamber” room, where Me¬ 
linda slept now, and a big boy was introduced into the 
Wheeler family; while Moll Thunder, an old woman 
skilled in “ yarbs,” as most of her race are, — for she 
was a half-breed Indian, — was sent for from Wing¬ 
field, and took command of the fever-patient, who 
raged and raved at his will, dosed with all manner of 
teas, choked with lukewarm porridge, smothered in 
blankets, bled twice a week, and kept as hot, as feeble, 
find as dirty, as the old practice of medicine required, 


FREEDOM wheeler's CONTROVERSY. 347 

till disease became a mere question of “the survival 
of the fittest.’’ Our grandfathers and grandmothers 
are vaunted to this day as a healthy, hard-working 
race, because the weakly share of each generation was 
neatly eliminated according to law. 

But, if Freedom was helpless and wandering, Melinda 
was not. A week was all she spared to the rites and 
rights of the occasion ; and when she first appeared in 
the kitchen, defying and horrifying Aunt Huldah, there 
ensued a brief and spicy conversation between the three 
women concerning this new baby, who lay sucking his 
fist in the old wooden cradle, looking round, hard, and 
red as a Baldwin apple, and quite unconscious what a 
firebrand he was about to be. 

“It’s real bad, ain’t it?” purred Aunt Hannah, 
“to think Freedom shouldn’t know nothin’ about the 
baby? He’d be jest as tickled! ” 

“I don’ know what for,” snapped Melinda. “I 
should think there was young uns enough round now to 
suit him.” 

“But they wasn’t boys,” answered Aunt Hannah. 
“ Freedom is sot on havin’ a boy to be called for him. 
There’s alius ben a Freedom Wheeler amongst our 
folks, as well as a Shearjashub, and I never see him 
more pestered by a little thing than when them two 
babies died, both on ’em bein’ baptized Freedom ; and 
he’s had a real controversy with Providence, Parson 
Pitcher sez, his mind’s so sot on this business.” 

“ Well, this little feller isn’t a-goin’ to be called 
Freedom, now, I tell j^e,” uttered Melinda, with a look 
of positiveness that clfilled Aunt Hannah to the heart. 
“He’s jest as piuch my baby’s he is his pa’s, and a 
good sight more, I b’lieve. Sha’n’t I hev all the trom 


848 


somebody’s neighboes. 


ble on him? an’ jest as quick as he’s big enough to 
help, instead o’ hinder, won’t he be snaked off inter the 
lots to work? I’ve seen men-folks afore ; and I tell ye. 
Aunt Ilanner, you give ’em an inch, ’n’ they take a 
harf a yard certain.” 

“Well, Melindy,” interfered Aunt Huldah, for 
once in her life essaying to make peace, “Freedom’s 
dreadful sick now: reelly he’s dangerous.” [This is 
New-England vernacular for in danger.] “What ef 
he should up ’n’ die? Wouldn’t ye feel kind o’ took 
aback to think on’t? ” 

“ Things is right ’n’ wrong jest the same ef every¬ 
body dies: everybody doos, sooner or later. I don’t 
see what odds that makes. Aunt Huldy. I ain’t a-goin’ 
to make no fuss about it. Fust Sunday in March 
is sacrament day, and childern is allers presented for 
baptism then. I’ll jest fix it right; and, ef his pa gits 
well, why, there ’tis, ’nd he’ll hev to git used to’t; 
and, ef he don’t, it ain’t no matter, he won’t never 
know. I guess I’ve got folks as well as you, and 
names too. There’s old Grandsir Bassett: he sot a 
sight by me, ’nd he was ninety years old ’n’ up’ards 
when he died. Why, he fit the British out to Ticon- 
derogy long o’ Ethan Allen! He was a dredful spry 
man, and had a kind o’ pootty name too, smart- 
soundin’ ; and I’m a-goin’ to call the boy for him. 
Freedom ! Land o’ Goshen ! ’tain’t a half a name any¬ 
how ; sounds like Fourth o’ July oh-rations, ’nd Ilaii 
Columby, ’nd fire-crackers, ’nd root-beer, ’nd Yankee 
Doodle thrown in! Now Grandsir Bassett’s name 
was T^mgustus. That sounds well, I tell ye ! — kinder 
mighty an pompous, ’s though it come out o’ them 
columns o’ long proper names to the end of the 
Speller.” 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 349 


Here Melinda got out of breath ; and dismayed Aunt 
Huldah followed Aunt Hannah, who had stolen off to 
Freedom’s room with a certain instinct of protecting 
him, as a hen who sees the circling wings of a hawk 
in the high blue heaven runs to brood her chicks. 

Moll Thunder was smoking a clay pipe up the wide 
chimney; and Freedom lay on the bed with half-shut 
eyes, drawn and red visage, parched lips, and restless, 
tossing head, murmuring wild words, — here and there 
calls for Lowly, a tender word for Love (whom he 
scarce ever noticed in health), or a muttered profanity 
at some balky horse or stupid ox-team. 

“ Kinder pootty sick,” grunted Moll Thunder, nod¬ 
ding to the visitants. “Plenty much tea-drink drown 
him ole debbil fever clear out ’fore long. He, he, he ! 
Moll knows : squaw-vine, pep’mint, cohosh, fever-wort; 
pootty good steep.” And from a pitcher of steaming 
herbs, rank of taste and evil of smell, she proceeded 
to dose her patient, a heroic remedy that might have 
killed or cured, but that now Aunt Hannah was no 
more^needed up stairs, and could resume her place by 
Freedom. And Moll was sent home to Wingfield with 
a piece of pork, a bag of meal, and a jug of cider- 
brandy, — a professional fee she much preferred to 
money. 

But even Aunt Hannah could not arrest the fever : it 
had its sixty days of fight and fire. While yet it raged 
in Freedom’s gaunt frame with unrelenting fierceness, 
Melinda carried out her programme, and had her baby 
baptized Tyagustus Bassett. Parson Pitcher came now 
and then to visit the sick man ; but, even when recovery 
lad proceeded so far that the reverend divine thought 
fit to exhort and catechise his weak brother in reference 


550 


somebody’s NElcJHBORS. 


to his religious experience, the old gentleman shook hia 
head, and took numerous pinches of snuff at the result. 

“ There seems to be a root of bitterness, — a root of 
bitterness remaining, Huldy. His speritooal frame is 
cold and hard. There is a want of tenderness, —a want 
of tenderness.” 

“He didn’t never have no great,” dryly remarked 
Aunt Huldah. 

“Grace has considerable of a struggle, no doubt, with 
the nateral man ; it is so with all of us : but after such 
a dispensation, an amazing dispensation, — brought 
into the jaws of death, — Huldy, where death got 
hold of him, and destruction made him afraid, in the 
words of Scripter, I should expect, I did expect, to 
find him in a tender frame. But he seems to kick 
against the pricks, — to kick against the pricks.” 

“ Well, Parson Pitcher, folks don’t alius do jest as 
ye calc’late to have ’em here below; and grace doos 
have a pootty hard clinch on’t with Freedom, I’m free 
to confess. He’s dredful sot, dredful; and I don’t 
mind tellin’ ye, seein’ we’re on the subject, that he’s 
ben kinder thwarted in suthin’ whilst he was sick, an’ 
he hain’t but jest found it out, and it doos rile him 
peskily: he dono how on airth to put up with’t.” 

“Indeed, indeed! Well, Huldy, the heart know- 
eth its own bitterness. I guess I will pray with the 
family now, and set my face homeward without deal¬ 
ing with Freedom further to-day.” 

“I guess I would,” frankly replied Aunt Huldah. 
“A little hullsome lettin’ alone’s good for grown folks 
as ’tis for children; and after a spell he’ll kinder 
simmer down: as Hanner sez, when ye can’t fix a 
thing your way, you’ve got to swaller it some other 
way ; but it doos choke ye awful sometimes.” 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 351 


There is no doubt that “Tyagustus” did choke 
Freedom, when he found that sonorous name tacked 
irremediably on to the great hearty boy he had hoped 
for so long, but never seen till it was six weeks’ old, 
and solemnly christened after Grandsir Bassett. A 
Grosser and a more disagreeable man than this conva¬ 
lescent never made a house miserable. The aunts went 
delicately, in bitterness of soul, after Agag’s fashion; 
Bub fled from before the paternal countenance, and 
almost lived in the barn; Marah had been for two 
months tyrannizing over Lovey at the Red House, as 
happy and as saucy as a bobolink on a fence-post; 
while Melinda, quite undaunted by the humors of her 
lord and master, went about her work with her usual 
zeal and energy, scolding Bub, working the hired man 
up to his extremest capacity, scrubbing, chattering, 
and cheery, now and then stopping to feed and hug 
the great good-tempered baby, or fetching some savory 
mess to Freedom, whose growls and groans disturbed 
her no more than the scrawks and croaks of the gos¬ 
siping old hens about the doorstep. 

By June he was about again, and things had found 
their level. If this were not a substantially true story, 
I should like to branch off here from the beaten 
track, and reform my hero, —make the gnarly oak into 
a fluent and facile willow-tree, and create a millennial 
peace and harmony in the old farmhouse, just to make 
things pleasant for dear Aunt Hannah and gentle 
little Lovey: but facts are stubborn things; and, if 
circumstances and the grace of God modify character, 
they do not change it. Peter and Peul were Paul and 
Peter still, though the end and aim of life were changed 
for them after conversion. 


352 


somebody’s neighbors. 


So Freedom Wheeler returned to his active life 
unchastened, indeed rather exasperated, by his illness. 
The nervous irritation and general unhinging of mind 
and body that follow a severe fever, added, of course, 
to his disgust and rebellion against the state of things 
about him. His heart’s desire had been refused him 
over and over; but it grew up again like a pruned 
shrub, the stronger and sturdier for every close cut¬ 
ting ; and, grinding his teeth against fate, — he dared 
not say against God, — he went his bitter way. 

Melinda never feared him, but he was a terror to 
the children ; and, had there been any keen observer at 
hand, it would have been painful to see how “ father ” 
was a dreadful word, instead of a synonyme for lov¬ 
ing protection and wise guidance. Aunt Hannah was 
shocked when Marah refused to say the Lord’s Prayer 
one night. “Me won’t! Me don’t want Father in 
heaven: fathers is awful cross. Me won’t say it, 
aunty.” 

“ Now, yon jest clap down ’nd say, ‘ Now I lay me’ 
quick as a wink! ” interposed Aunt Huldah. “ Han- 
ner, don’t ye let that child talk so to ye. I’d tune 
her, afore I would, I tell ye.” 

But, in the secrecy of her own apartment. Aunt Hul¬ 
dah explained, “ You see, Hanner, I’ve took the meas¬ 
ure of that young un’s foot. She’s pa all over,—no 
more like Lowly’n chalk is like cheese. Ef you’d 
ha’ battled it out with her, she’d ha’ got the better of 
ye, ’nd more’n likely gone home an’ told the hull 
story; and then Freedom would nigh about ha’ slar- 
tered her; ’nd I don’t want the leetle cretur’s sperit 
broke. Fact is, I feel jes’ so myself. He is so all- 
fired ugly, seems as though I should bust sometimes. 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. SS.S 

Moreover, ’nd above all, ’t ain’t never best to let chil- 
dern git the better of ye. They don’t never go back 
on their tracks ef they do. I put in my finger that 
time so’s’t she shouldn’t querrel with you, ’nd she 
said t’other thing jest like a cosset lamb: she was 
sort o’ surprised into’t, ye see.” 

“I presume likely, I presume likely, Huldy. She’s 
a masterful piece, Mara is. I’m afeard she’ll taste 
trouble afore she dies. Sech as she has to have a lot 
of discipline to fetch ’em into the kingdom.” 

“Don’t seem to be no use to Freedom, ’flictions 
don’t. Banner. Sometimes, I declare for’t, I have my 
doubts ef he ever got religion, anyhow.” 

“Why, Huldy Wheeler!” Aunt Hannah’s eyes 
glowed with mild wrath, — “’nd he’s ben a professor 
nigh on to thirty year. How can ye talk so? I’m 
clean overcome.” 

“ Well, I can’t help it. There’s some things stand 
to reason, ef they be speritooal things ; ’nd one on ’em 
is, that, ef a man’s born again, he’s a new cretur. 
You’re paowerful on Bible-texts; so I won’t sling no 
Catechism at ye this time: but there’s suthin’, some¬ 
where ’long in some o’ the ’Pistles, about ‘ love, joy, 
peace, gentleness, goodness, meekness,’ ’nd so on, for 
quite a spell; and, if that cap fits Freedom, why, I’m 
free to say I don’t see it.” 

“Well, Huldy, we must make allowances: ye see, 
he’s dreadful disapp’inted.” 

“That’s so. You’d better believe he don’t say the 
Lord’s Prayer no more’n Marah; or, ef he doos, it 
goes, ‘ My will be done : ’ he hain’t learnt how to spell 
it Pother way.” Aunt Hannah sighed. She was get¬ 
ting old now; and Freedom was as dear to her as an 


S54 


somebody’s neighbors. 


only child, wayward and wilful though it be, to a loving 
mother; but she rested her heart on its lifelong com¬ 
fort, — a merciful presence that was her daily strength, 
— and hoped for the best, for some future time, even 
if she did not live to see it, when this stubborn heart of 
her boy’s should become flesh, and his soul accept a 
divine Master, with strong and submissive faith. 

Poor Aunt Hannah ! She had shed countless tears, 
and uttered countless prayers, to this end, but as yet 
in vain. Next year only brought fresh exasperation 
to Freedom in the birth of a daughter, as cross, noisy, 
and disagreeable as she was unwelcome. He flung out 
of the house, and went to ploughing the ten-acre lot, 
though the frost was only out of the surface : he broke 
his share, goaded his oxen till even those patient 
beasts rebelled, and at last left the plough in the fur¬ 
row, and took a last year’s colt out to train. Melinda 
escaped a great deal through that poor colt; for what 
he dared not pour on her offending head in the way 
of reviling, he safely hurled at the wild creature he 
found so restive in harness; and many a kick and 
blow taught the brute how superior a being man , is — 
particularly when he is out of temper. 

“Keep that brat out o’ my sight. Aunt Hanner,” 
was his first greeting to the child. “Don’t fetch it 
’round here : it’s nothin’ but a noosance.” 

Aunt Hannah retreated in dismay; but she dared 
not tell Melinda, whose passion for fine-sounding 
names was mightily gratified at the opportunity to 
select a girl’s appellation. Before she issued from her 
sick-room she made up her mind to call tnis child 
Chimera Una Vilda. 

Dear reader, give me no credit for imagination here. 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 355 

These are actual names, registered on church record! 
and tombstones, with sundry others of the like sort, 
such as Secretia, Luelle, Lorilla Allaroila, Lue, Plumy, 
Antha, Loruhama, Lophelia, Bethursda, and a host 
more. But it mattered little to Freedc'n: the child 
might have any name, or no name, as far as he cared. 
It was a naughty baby, and rent the air with cries of 
temper in a manner that was truly hereditary. 

“ I never see such a piece in all my days! ” sighed 
Aunt Hannah, whose belief in total depravity became 
an active principle under this dispensation. “T de¬ 
clare for’t, Huldy, you can hear her scream way over 
here.” 

“ Well, I b’lieve you, Hanner: the winders is wide 
open, and we ain’t but jest acrost the road. I guess 
you could hear her a good mile. An’ she keeps it up 
the hull endurin’ time. Makes me think o’ them cheru- 
bims the Rev’lations tells about, that continooally do 
cry : only she ain’t cryin’ for praise.” 

“I expect she’d cry for suthin’ besides crossness ef 
she knew how her pa feels about her. It’s awful, 
Huldy, it is awful, to see him look at the child once in 
a while.” 

“ She knows it in her bones, I tell ye. Talk about 
’riginal sin! I guess she won’t want no sin more 
’riginal than what’s come down pootty straight from 
him. She’s jest another of ’em, now I tell ye.” 

But Melinda was equal to the situation, whether she 
picked up the last maple-twig Marah brought in frcm 
driving the cows, or pulled the stiff wooden busk from 
her maternal bosom, or “ketched off her shoe,” or 
jven descended upon that chubby form with her own 
hard hand, and pungently ‘ ‘ reversed the magnetic cur* 


856 


somebody’s neighbors. 


rents,” as they say in Boston. Those currents were 
reversed so often, it might have been matter of doubt 
which way they originally ran after a year or two. 
But the old Adam was strong; and when Chimera — 
no chimera to them, but a dreadful reality — was sent 
over to stay a while at the red house, the aunts were at 
their wits’ ends, and Lovey both tired and tormented. 

This time, for Chimera’s visit to the aunts was 
occasioned by the immediate prospect of another baby, 
Aunt Hannah was not able to take care of Melindy. 
The dear old woman was getting old: a “ shockanum 
palsy,” as Aunt Huldah called a slight paralytic stroke, 
had given her warning; her head shook perpetually, 
and her hands trembled. She could still do a little 
work about the house ; but her whole failing body was 
weary with the perpetual motion, and she knew life 
was near its end for her. So they sent to Dorset 
Centre for the village nurse,—a fat, good-natured crea¬ 
ture ; and one morning, early, a boy — a rosy, sturdy, 
big boy— appeared on the stage. 

Now Freedom exulted: he strode over to the red 
house to tell the news. “Fact, Aunt Hannah! I’ve 
got him now, — a real stunner too. You won’t see no 
tricks played now, I tell ye 1 By jingo ! I’m goin’ off 
for Parson Pitcher quicker’n lightnin’. I’ll bet ye 
Melindy won’t git ahead o’ me this time. That leetle 
feller’ll be Freedom Wheeler in two hours’ time, sure’s 
ye live.” 

“Providence permitting,” put in Aunt Hannah 
softly, as if to avert the omen of this loud and pre¬ 
sumptuous rejoicing. But, soft as the prayer was. 
Freedom heard it, and, as he opened the door, turned 
on his heel, and answered, “Whether or no, this 
time." 


FREEDOM wheeler's CONTROVERSY. 357 

Aunt Hannah lay back in her chair, utterly shocked. 
This was rank blasphemy in her ears: she did not 
remember the illustrative story Aunt Huldah told Free¬ 
dom, on a time long past, about a certain old woman’s 
intention to go to Hartford, or she might, perhaps, have 
been less horrified. Still it was bad enough; for, if 
the words were lightly spoken, the spirit within the man 
accorded fully with his tone, and never was keener 
triumph rampant in any conqueror’s heart than in this 
rough, self-willed farmer’s as he drove his horse, full 
tilt, down the long hills, and up the sharp ascents, that 
lay between him and the parsonage. But Parson 
Pitcher had been called up higher than Freedom 
Wheeler’s. That very morning he had fallen asleep in 
his bed, weak and wasted with a long influenza; and, 
being almost ninety years old, the sleep of weakness 
had slipped quietly into the deeper calm of death. 

He had for a year past been obliged to have a col¬ 
league ; so Freedom hunted the young man up at his 
boarding-place, and took him instead, — a little ag¬ 
grieved, indeed, for long custom made Parson Pitcher 
seem the only valid authority for religious observances 
of this kind; and, years after he ceased to preach, the 
little children were always brought to him for baptism. 

But I s’pose one on ’em’s reelly as good as t’other 
lor this puppus,” hilariously remarked Freedom to the 
old lady who lodged the colleague, receiving a grim 
stare of disapproval for his answer, as he deserved. 
However, there was one advantage in having Mr. 
Brooks instead of ^;he parson. Freedom was out 
slightly acquainted with the new-comer: so he poured 
cut all his troubles, his losses, and his present rejoicing, 
id the way home, with a frankness and fluency strangf 


358 


somebody's neighbors. 


enough; for New-Englanders as a race are reticent 
both of their affairs and their feelings, and Freedom 
Wheeler was more so by nature than by race. This 
exultation seemed to have fused his whole character 
for the time into glowing, outpouring fervor: a deep 
and ardent excitement fired his eye, and loosed his 
tongue ; and Mr. Brooks, who had a tinge of the meta¬ 
physical and inquisitive about him, was mightily inter¬ 
ested in the man; and being, as he phrased it, a 
“ student of character,” —which is, being interpreted, 
an impertinent soul who makes puppets of his fellows 
to see how their wires work, and discover the thoughts 
of their hearts for his own theories and speculations. 
— he gently drew out this intoxicated man, “ drunken, 
but not with wine,” as he was, with judicious sugges¬ 
tions and inquiries, till he knew him to the core; a 
knowledge of use to neither party, and to the young 
clergyman only another apple off the tree from which 
Eve plucked sin and misery, and a sour one at that. 

Once more the old china punch-bowl that had been 
a relic in the 'Wheeler family beyond their record, and 
would have crazed a china-fancier with the lust of the 
eye, was filled from the spring, and set on the claw¬ 
footed round table in the parlor, the door left open 
into Melinda’s room so she could see all the ceremony, 
the aunts and nurse assembled in solemn array (ail 
the children being sent over to Lovey’s care at the 
red house) ; and with due propriety the new baby, 
squirming and kicking with great vigor in his father’s 
arms, was baptized Freedom Wheeler. 

Why is it that “the curse of a granted prayer” 
comes sometimes immediately? AVhy do we pant and 
thirst, and find the draught poisonous ? or, after long 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 359 


exile, come home, only to find home gone? Alas! 
these are the conditions of humanity, the questions we 
all ask, the thwarting and despair we all endure, and 
also the mystery and incompleteness which tell us in 
hourly admonition that this life is a fragment and a 
beginning, and that its ends are not peace and rapture, 
but discipline and education. Freedom Wheeler was 
no apt pupil, but his sharpest lesson came to-day. 

Full of exultation over fate, Melinda, and the aunts, 
chuckling to himself with savage satisfaction at the 
conscious feeling that it was no use for anybody— even 
the indefinite infiuence he dared not call God — to try 
to get the better of him, he strode across the room to 
give his boy back to Melinda, stumbled over a little 
stool that intruded from below the sofa, fell full-length 
on the floor, with the child under him; and when he 
rose to his feet, dazed with the jar of the fall, it was 
but just in time to see those baby eyelids quiver once, 
and close forever. The child was dead. 

Melinda rose up in the bed with a dreadful face: 
shriek on shriek burst from her lips. The women 
crowded about Freedom, and took the limp little body 
from his arms. He leaned against the door-way like a 
man in a dream. The torrents of reproach and agony 
that burst from Melinda's lips seemed not to enter his 
ears : “ JNow, you've aone it! you’ve killed him I you 
have I you have ! ” But why repeat the wild and bitter 
words of a mother bereft of her child in the first hours 
of it^ fresh, strong life ? Melinda was not a cruel or 
ungenerous woman naturally; but now she was weak 
and nervous, and the shock was too much for her brain. 

In this sudden stress Mr. Brooks forgot his meta¬ 
physics, and fell back on the old formulas, which, after 


860 


somebody’s neighbors. 


all, do seem to wear better than metaphysics in any real 
woe or want. He drew near to Freedom, and put his 
hand on the wretched man’s shoulder. ‘‘ My brother,” 
said he gently, “this evil is from the hand of the 
Lord : bear it like a Christian.” 

“He ain’t no Christian!” shouted Melinda, with 
accents of concentrated bitterness. “Christians -ain’t 
that sort, growlin’ and scoldin’, and fightin’ with the 
Lord that made him, cos he couldn’t hev his own way, 
and uplifted sky-high when he got it: ’nd now look to 
where ’tis ! The hypocrite’s hope is cut off, cut off I 
Oh, my baby, my baby, my baby!” Here she fell 
into piteous wailing and fainting ; and Mr. Brooks led 
the passive, stricken man away; while Aunt Huldah 
despatched Reuben Stark for the doctor, and Aunt 
Hannah and the nurse tried to calm and restore 
Melinda. 

But it was idle to try to draw Freedom from his 
silent gloom. He would neither speak nor hear, ap¬ 
parently ; and Mr. Brooks, seeing Reuben hitching the 
horse to the wagon, took his hat to leave. Aunt 
Huldah followed him to the door for politeness. 

“ Send for me when you are ready for the funeral, 
Miss Huldah,” said he in taking leave. “ I feel deeply 
for you all, especially for brother Wheeler. The Lord 
seems to have a controversy with him indeed.” 

“That’s so,” curtly replied Aunt Huldah; “an’ I 
don’t see but what he’s kep’ up his end on’t pootty 
well. But I guess he’s got to let go. This makes 
three on ’em ; and it’s an old sayin’, ‘ three times an’ 
out.’ ” 

A suddenly subdued smile curled the corners of Mr. 
Brooks’s mouth for a second. Poor man, he had a 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 861 


keen sense of the ludicrous, and was minister in a 
country parish. 

“Good-day,’^ nodded Aunt Huldah, quite unaware 
that she had said any thing peculiar; and then she 
returned to Freedom. But he had gone out of the 
kitchen; nor did any one know where he was, till the 
horn called to supper, when he came in, swallowed a 
cup of tea, and went speechless to bed, not even ask¬ 
ing about Melinda, whom the doctor found in the first 
stage of fever, and pronounced “dangerous.” 

But Melinda was strong, and could bear a great deal 
yet. She was comparatively a young woman; and, 
after a month’s severe illness, she began to improve 
daily, and in another month was like her old self again, 
— perhaps a trifle less cheery, but still busy, vivacious, 
and unsparing of herself or others. But Freedom was 
a changed man. The scornful and bitter words Melinda 
had uttered in her frantie passion burnt deep into his 
soul, though he gave no sign even of hearing them. 

Kingsley speaks of “the still, deep-hearted North¬ 
ern, whose pride breaks slowly and silently, but breaks 
once for all; who tells to God what he never will tell 
to man, and, having told it, is a new creature from that 
day forth forever; ” and something after this fashion 
was Freedom Wheeler shaped. He had been brought 
up in the strictest Calvinism, had his “ experience ” in 
due form, and then united with the church. Bu": 
Parson Pitcher never preached to anybody but uncon¬ 
verted sinners : hell-fire drove him on to save from the 
consequences of sin. Its conditions, people who were 
once converted must look out for themselves. And 
Freedom’s strong will, sullen temper, and undisciplined 
character, grew up like the thorns in the parable, and 


862 


somebody’s neighbors. 


choked the struggling blades of grain that never 
reached an ear. Melinda’s accusations were the first 
sermon that ever awoke his consciousness. He had 
always prided himself on his honesty, and here he saw 
that he had been an utter hypocrite. 

AYith all his faults, he had a simple faith in th« 
truths of the Bible, and a conscientious respect for ordi¬ 
nances ; and now there fell upon him a deep conviction 
of heinous sin, a gloom, a despair, that amounted 
almost to insanity. But he asked no counsel, he im¬ 
plored no divine aid: with the peculiar sophistry of 
religious melancholy, he considered that his prayers 
would be an abomination to the Lord. So he kept 
silence, poring more and more over his Bible, appro¬ 
priating its dreadful texts all to himself, and turning 
his eyes away from every gracious and tender promise, 
as one unworthy to read them. 

He worked more faithfully than ever, — worked from 
day’s first dawn into the edge of darkness, as if the 
suffering of a worn-out body had a certain counter¬ 
irritation for the tortured mind. There are many rods 
of stone wall on that old farm to-day, laid up of such 
great stones, made so wide and strong and close, that 
the passer-by looks at it with wonder, little knowing 
that the dreadful struggles of a wandering and thwarted 
soul mark the layers of massive granite, and record the 
exhaustion of flesh mastered by strong and strenuous 
spirit. 

When Melinda was herself again, it was yet some 
time before she noticed the change in Freedom. There 
was a certain simple selfishness about tier that made 
her own grief hide every other, and impelled her to try 
with all her might to forget her trouble, to get rid of 


FREEDOM wheeler's CONTROVERSY. 363 

the sharp memory that irked her soul like a rankling 
thorn. She hid all her baby-clothes away in the garret; 
she sent the cradle out to the shed-loft, and never 
opened her lips about that lost boy, whose name Aunt 
Huldah had recorded in the same record with the two 
who had preceded him, and whose little body lay under 
the mulleins and golden-rods, beside the others, at Low¬ 
ly’s feet. 

But, as time wore on, Melinda began to see that 
some change had passed over her husband. She had 
quite forgotten her own mad words, spoken in the first 
delu’ium of her anguish, and followed by the severe 
fever that had almost swept away life as well as memo¬ 
ry. No remorse, therefore, softened her heart; but it 
was not needed. Though Melinda was an incisive, 
stirring, resolute woman, with her warm temper she 
had also a warm heart: she could not live in the house 
with a dog or a cat without feeling a certain kindly 
affection for the creature. Her step-children never 
suffered at her hands, but shared in all the care she 
gave her own, and loved her as well as shy, careless 
children of a healthy sort love anybody. She loved her 
husband truly. Her quick, stormy words meant no more 
than the scolding of a wren: in her heart she held 
Freedom dear and honored, only he did not know it. 

But she began now, in her anxiety about his sad and 
gloomy ways, to soften her manner toward him daily. 
She remembered the things he liked to eat, and prepared 
them for the table ; she made him a set of new shirts, 
and set the stitches in them with scrupulous neatness ; 
she kept the house in trim and pleasant order, and sai 
up at night to mend his working-clothes, so that they 
were always whole, — homely services and demonstra 


364 


SO:NrEBODY’S NEIGHBORS. 


tions, no doubt, but having as much fitness tc place 
and person as the scenic passion of a novel in high life, 
or a moral drama where the repentant wife throws her¬ 
self into a stern husband’s arms, and, with flying tresses 
and flowing tears, vows never to vex or misunderstand 
his noble soul again. 

Freedom’s conscious controversy with his Maker still 
went on wnthin him, and raged between doubt and 
despair; but he was human, and the gentle ray of 
affection that stole from Melinda’s “ little candle ” did 
its work in his “ naughty world. ” He felt a certain 
comfort pervading home when he came in at night sad 
and weary: the children’s faces were clean, the hearth 
washed, the fire bright; warmth and peace brooded 
over the old kitchen, crackled softly from the back-log, 
purred in the cat, sang from the kettle-nose ; Melinda’s 
shining hair was smooth, her look quiet and wistful; 
the table was neatly spread, — little things, surely ; but 
life is made up of them, and hope and happiness and 
success. 

The dark cloud in this man’s soul began to lift im¬ 
perceptibly ; and he was called out of himself pres¬ 
ently to stand by Aunt Hannah’s bed and see her die. 
A second shock of paralysis suddenly prostrated her, 
and she was laid on the pillows speechless and sense¬ 
less. Twenty-four hours of anxiet}’ and tears passed, 
and then she seemed to revive: she stirred her hand, 
her face relaxed, her eyes opened ; but the exhaustion 
was great, and she was unable to speak. Conscious 
and patient, she endured through a few days more, and 
then the final message came. Another paralysis, a 
longer silence, and those grouped about her bed in the 
Old red house, thinking every moment to see the shadow 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 


365 


of death fall over those beloved features, beheld with 
surprise the soft brown eyes open, and fix upon Free¬ 
dom such a look of longing, tender, piteous affection 
as might have broken the heart of a stonea long, 
long gaze, a very passion of love, pity, and yearning, 
and then those eyes turned heavenward, grew glorious 
with light and peace, and closed slowly, — closed for¬ 
ever. 

Freedom went out and wept bitterly: he had denied 
his Lord too ; and it was a look that smote him to the 
heart, as that divine glance did Peter. But no man 
knew or saw it. Hidden in the barn, a dim and fra¬ 
grant oratory that has seen more than one struggle of 
soul in the past and unknown records of New England, 
Freedom “ gave up,” and gave up finally. 

He was no longer a young man, and he was not the 
stuff that saints are made of; but he had a stern 
honesty, an inward uprightness, that held him ,to his 
new resolve like hooks of steel. If his temper soft¬ 
ened a little, his obstinacy yielded here and there, his 
manner gave out now and then some scanty spark of 
affection and consideration, these were the outward 
signs of a mighty change within; for an old and 
weather-beaten tree does not bloom in its spring resur¬ 
rection with the flowers and promise of a young and 
vigorous growth : it is much if the gnarled boughs put 
out their scanty share of verdure, if there is a blossom 
on a few branches, and shelter enough for a small 
bird’s nest from sun or rain. Lovey, grown by this 
time a tall and helpful girl, with her mother’s delicate 
sweetness in face and figure, was first perhaps to feel 
this vital change in her father. Aunt Hannah’s death 
was a woful loss to her tender, clinging nature ; and sha 


366 


somebody’s neighbors. 


turned to him with the instinct of a child, and found a 
shy and silent sympathy from him that was strangely 
dear and sweet, and bound them together as never be¬ 
fore. Aunt Huldah, too, noticed it. “Dear me!'* 
said she to herself, as she sat alone by the fire, knitting 
red stockings for Chimera, who had begun to mend her 
ways a little under the steady birch-and-shingle disci¬ 
pline, — “ dear me, I’m real afraid Freedom ain’t long 
for this world. lie is kinder mellerin’, like a stone- 
apple in June; it’s onnateral. I expect he’s struck 
with death, Hanner, don’t you? Oh, my land, what a 
old fool I be 1 Banner’s gone, ’nd here I be a-talkin’ 
to her jest as though”— Aunt Huldah wiped her 
dimmed eyes with a red silk handkerchief, and rubbed 
her misty glasses before she went on, still leaving the 
sentence unfinished. “ Mabbe it’s a triumph o’ grace. 
I s’pose grace can get the better o’ Freedom: seems 
kinder doubtful, I must confess ; but I don’t see nothin’ 
else that could fetch him, and he is a-growin’ soft, sure 
as ye live.” 

But Melinda, less sensitive or perceptive, perceived 
only that her efforts had “kinder sorter slicked him 
down,” as she said. 

It was reserved for the birth of another child to de¬ 
monstrate how Freedom had laid down his arms, and 
gone over to the king at last. Yes, two years after 
Aunt Hannah’s death, another fine and hearty boy 
entered the family, but not this time with such acclaim 
and welcome as the last. Melinda, weak and happy, 
grew gentler than ever before, between present bliss 
and future fear: and Freedom, hiding his face in his 
hard brown hands, thanked God with shame and trem¬ 
bling for this undeserved mercy; and even while he 


FREEDOM wheeler’s CONTROVERSY. 3G7 


shuddered, naturally enough, at the possibilities the 
past recalled, he could say humbly and fervently, 
“ Thy will be done.” 

Nobody spoke of sending for the minister now, nor 
was even a name for baby suggested till two months 
after, when Melinda said to Freedom one night, when 
the children were all in bed, and they sat alone by the 
fire, waiting for the last brand to fall in two b<^fore it 
could be raked up, “Next Sunday but one is sacra¬ 
ment Sunday, Freedom. It’s good weather now: 
hadn’t the little feller better be presented fur baptism ? ” 

“ I guess so,” answered he. 

“What do ye calkerlate to call him?” asked Me¬ 
linda shyly, after a pause. 

“Thet’s for you to say, Melinda: I wish ye to do 
jest as ye’re a mind to,” he said gently, with a stifled 
sigh. 

“That’s easy settled then,” she replied, a pretty 
smile about her red lips, and laying her hand on hei 
husband’s knee: “I don’t want to call him nothin’ 
more nor less than Freedom.” 

He put his hand on hers for a moment, looked the 
other way, and then got up and went out silently. 

So one bright June day baby was taken to the meet¬ 
ing-house, and received his name, and was duly re¬ 
corded in the family Bible, but with no ominous mono¬ 
syllable added to his birth-date ; and Aunt Huldah, as 
she went out of church, said to Mr. Brooks, by no 
means inaudibly, “I guess Freedom’s gin up his con¬ 
troversy finally. He did keep up his end on’t quite a 
spell; but he’s gin up for good now, I expect.” 

“ Yes,” answered the young parson, with a smile of 
mingled feeling and reverence. “ The Lord was in tne 
still small voice.” 


MRS. FLINT’S MARRIED EXPERIENCE. 


“Well, Mindwell, I have counselled a good deal 
about it. I was happy as the day is long with your 
father. I don’t say but what I cleaved to this world 
consider’ble more than was good for my growth in 
grace. He was about the best. But it pleased the 
Lord to remove him, and it was quite a spell before 
I could reelly submit: the nateral man rebelled, now I 
tell you! You can’t never tell what it is to lose a 
companion till you exper’ence it.” 

A faint color, vanishing as rapidly as it came, almost 
as if ashamed that it bore witness to the emotion within 
her, rose to Mindwell Pratt’s face as her mother spoke. 
She was a typical New-England woman, —pale, serious, 
with delicate features, grave dark eyes, a tall, slight, 
undeveloped figure, graceful from mere unconscious¬ 
ness, awkward and angular otherwise. You could 
compare her to nothing but some delicate and slender 
tree of the forest that waves its fragile but hardy 
branches fresh and green in spring-time, and abides 
undaunted the worst blast of winter, rooted in the fis¬ 
sures of the rock, fed by the bitterest showers, the 
melting snows, the furious hail that bends but never 
breaks it; perfect in its place, fitted utterly to its sur¬ 
roundings. Her mother, the Widow Gold, was exter 
aally like her; but deep in Mindwell’s heart lay r 
368 


MRS. FLESTT’S married EXPERIENCE. 369 


strength of character, and acuteness of judgment, the 
elder woman did not possess, and a reticence that for¬ 
bade her to express sympathy, even with her mother’s 
sorrow, further than by that reluctant blush ; for sym¬ 
pathy implied an expression of her love for her hus¬ 
band, — a hidden treasure she could not profane by 
speech, which found its only demonstration in deeds, 
and was the chief spring of her active and devoted life 
as wife and mother. 

Mrs. Gold had been a happy woman, as she said, 
while her husband lived, and had not yet ceased to 
reproach herself for mourning him so bitterly. The 
religion of New England at that time was of a stem 
type : it demanded a spiritual asceticism of its follow¬ 
ers, and virtually forbade them to enjoy the blessings 
of this life by keeping them in horrid and continual 
dread of “the pains of hell forever,” as their Catechism 
expresses it. It was their purpose to work out their 
own salvation with fear and trembling under the curse 
of the law. The gospel was a profound and awful 
mystery, to be longed for afar off, no more daily bread 
than the show-bread of the Temple. 

They lived and worked, and suffered and died, with 
few exceptions, in an awful sense of flying time, brief 
probation, an angry God, a certain hell, but a very 
uncertain heaven. No wonder that they wtie austere 
and hard : the wonder was that even natural tempera¬ 
ment and mental organization should ever resist this 
outside pressui-e, and give play to humor, or fancy, or 
passion of any sort. Yet in this faithless faith lay 
elements of wonderful strength. The compelling force 
of duty made men nobly honest, rigidly upright, just, 
as far as their narrow views allowed, and true to the 


370 


somebody’s neighbors. 


outward relations of this life, however they violated 
their inner principle and meaning. Speculation, defal 
cation, divorce, were crimes they called hy other names 
than these, and abhorred. Can we say as much for 
ourselves? However we may sneer at Puritanism, it 
had its strong virtues ; and its outgrowth was honesty, 
decency, and respect for law. A share of such virtues 
would be worth much to us now. 

Mrs. Gold was “a professor,” and it behooved her 
to submit to the will of God when her husband died. 
He had been a strong, generous, warm-hearted man; 
and, though undemonstrative as his race, his wife had 
been loved and cherished as the very blossom of his 
life. She was a sweet, fair gud when Ethan Gold 
married her, clinging and dependent by nature, though 
education had made her a hard worker ; but her fragile 
beauty and soft temper had attracted the strength and 
fervor of the man, and their short life together had 
been exceptionally happy. Then fever struck him 
down in his full prime ; and their only child, a gM of 
six, could but just remember all her life that she once 
had a father whose very memory was sacred. Fifteen 
years of mourning, at first deeply, then steadily, at last 
habitually, and rather as a form than a feeling, passed 
away. 

Ethan had left his wife with “means ; ” so that pov¬ 
erty did not vex her. And now Mindwell was a grown 
woman, and married to Samuel Pratt, a well-to-do 
young farmer of Colebrook, a hearty, jovial young 
fellow, whose fun and animal spirits would bubble over 
in spite of reproving eyes and tongues, and who came 
into Mindwell’s restrained and reserved life like a burst 
of sunshine. Are the wild blossoms grateful to^ the 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 371 


Bun that draws them with powerful attraction from the 
cold sod, 

“ Where they together, 

All the cold weather, 

Keep house alone”? 

Perhaps their odor and color are for him who brings 
them to light and delight of life. Mind well’s great 
fear was that she made an idol of her husband, yet 
he certainly had not an idea that she did. 

If the good soul had stopped to analyze the relation 
between them, his consciousness would have been 
found, when formulated, to be, that his wife bore with 
him as saints do with rather amusing sinners ; while he 
worshipped her as even the most humorous of sinners 
do sometimes secretly worship saints. But what the 
wife did not acknowledge, or the husband perceive, 
became in a few years painfully perceptible to the 
mother’s feminine and maternal instinct. Mind well 
Ideated her with all possible respect and kindness, but 
she was no longer her first object. There is a strange 
hunger in the average female heart to be the one and 
only love of some other heart, which lies at the root of 
fearful tragedies and long agonies of unspoken pain, — 
a God-given instinct, no doubt, to make the monopoly 
of marriage dear and desirable, but, like all other in- 
Btincts, fatal if it be not fulfilled or followed. Utterly 
wanting in men, who grasp the pluralities of passion 
as well as of office, this instinct niches itself deepest in 
the gentlest of women, and was the ruling yet unrecog¬ 
nized motive in the Widow Gold’s character. If Mind- 
r 7 ell had not had children, perhaps her mother world 
f’ave been more necessary tc her, and more dear; bul 
two babies had followed on her marriage within three 


372 


somebody’s NEIGHBOllS. 


years, and her mother-love was a true passion. This 
the grandmother perceived with a tender jealousy fast 
growing acute. She loved the little girls, as grand¬ 
mothers do, with unreasoning and lavish fondness. If 
there had been a maiden aunt in the family, — that 
unconsidered maid-of-all-work, whose love is felt to be 
intrusive, while yet the demands on it are insatiable, — 
the Widow Gold would have had at least one sympa¬ 
thetic breast to appeal to; but as it was she became 
more and more uneasy and unhappy, and began to 
make herself wretched with all the commonplaces she 
could think of,—about her “room being better than 
her company,” “love runs down, not up,” and the 
like, — till she was really pining, when just at this 
moment an admirer came upon the scene, and made 
known the reason of his appearance in a business-like 
way. 

“Deacon Flint’s in the keepin’-room, mother, wish¬ 
ful to see you,” said Mindwell one day, about five 
years after her marriage. Deacon Flint was an old 
acquaintance, known to Mrs. Gold ever since she was 
a girl in Bassett. When she married, and moved to 
Denslow, the acquaintance had been partly dropped, 
though only nine miles lay between them ; but she had 
then her family cares, and Ethan Gold and Amasa 
Flint were as unlikely to be friends as a Newfoundland 
dog and a weasel. Since she had come to Colebrook 
to live with her daughter, she was a little farther still 
from her Bassett friends, and therefore it was a long 
time since she had seen the deacon. Meanwhile he 
had lost his wife, a silent and sickly woman, who crept 
about and worried through her daily duties for years, 
spent and fainting when the last supper-dish was 


MRS. flint's married EXPERIENCE. 373 


washed, and aching at early dawn when she had to gel 
up to milk. She did not complain : her duty lay there, 
in her home, and she did it as long as she could — then 
she died. This is a common record among our barren 
hills, which count by thousands their unknown and 
unsung martyrs. It was a year after her death when 
Deacon Flint made his first visit to Widow Gold. He 
was tired of paying Aunt Polly Morse seventy-five 
cents a w’eek to do housework, though she spun and 
wove, and made and mended, as faithfully as his wife 
had done, confiding only to one trusty ear her opinion 
of her employer. 

“He’s a professor, ye know, Isr’el, and I make no 
doubt but what he’s a good man; but he is dreadful 
near. Seems as if he reelly begrutched me my vittles 
sometimes ; and there ain’t a grain o’ salt in that house 
spilt without his findin’ of it out. Now, I don’t calc’late 
to spill no salt, nor nothin’ else, to waste it; but, land’s 
sakes ! I can’t see like a fly, so’s to scare up every 
mite of sugar that’s left onto the edges of the paper he 
fetches it hum in. I wish to gracious he’d get some¬ 
body else. I’d ruther do chores for Mirandy Huff 
than for the deacon.” 

Old Israel’s wrinkled face, puckered mouth, and 
deep-set eyes, twitched with a furtive laugh. He was 
the village fool, yet shrewder than any man who stopped 
to jest with him, and a fool only in the satiric sense 
of jester; for though he had nothing of his own but a 
tiny brown house and pig-pen, and made his living, 
tuch as it was, by doing odd jobs, and peddling yeast 
from the distilleries at Simsbury, he was the most inde¬ 
pendent man in Bassett, being regardless of public 
Bpimon, and not at all afraid of Parson Roberts. 


374 


somebody’s neighboes. 


“Well, Aunt Polly,” he answered, “ you stay by a 
spell: the deacon won’t want ye too long. He’s got 
a sharp eye, now I tell ye, and he’s forehanded as fur}'. 
Fust you know, Miss Flint’ll come home, and you’ll 
go home.” 

“Miss Flint!” screamed Aunt Polly. “Why, 
Isr’el Tucker, you give me such a turn ! Poor cretur, 
she’s safe under the mulleins this year back. I guess 
I shall go when she comes, but ’twon’t be till the day 
o’ judgment.” 

“ Then the day o’ judgment’s near by, Aunt Polly ; 
and I reckon it is for one poor cretur. But you don’t 
somehow seem to take it in. I tell ye the deacon’s 
gone a-courtin’.” 

“Courtin’! Isr’el! you be a-foolin’of me now, 
certain sure.” 

“Not a mite on’t. I see him a-’ilin’ up his old 
harness yesterday, and a-rubbin’ down the mare, and 
I mistrusted he was up to suthin. And Squire Battle 
he met him a’most to Colebrook this mornin’ : I heerd 
him say so. I put this ’n’ that together, and drawed 
my own influences; and I Aggered out that he’s gone 
to Colebrook to see if Widder Gold won’t hev him. A 
wife’s a lot cheaper than hired help, and this one’s got 
means.” 

“For mercy’s sakes! You don’t suppose Sarepty 
Gold would look at him, do ye? ” 

“I never see the woman yet that wouldn’t look al 
a man when he axed her to,” was the dry answer. 
But Aunt Polly was too stunned with her new ideas 
to retort. She went on, as if the sneer at her sex had 
not reached her ear, — 

‘‘‘ WThy, she ha’n’t no need to marry him: she’s 


MRS. flint’s MAREIED EXPERIENCE. 375 

got a good home to Sam Pratt’s. And there’s that 
farm here that Hi Smith runs on shares, and money in 
Har’ford bank, they do say. She won’t have him; 
don’t ye tell me so.” 

‘‘ Women are mortal queer,” replied old Israel'. 

“If they wa’n’t, there wouldn’t no men get mar¬ 
ried,” snapped Aunt Polly, who was a contented old 
maid, and never suspected she was “ queer” herself. 

“That’s so, Aunt Polly. Mabbe it’s what Parson 
Poberts calls a dispensation, and I guess it is. I say 
for’t, a woman must be extry queer to marry Amasy 
Flint, ef she’s even got a chance at Bassett poor-house.” 

Yet Israel was right in his prophecy. At that very 
moment Deacon Flint was sitting bolt-upright in a 
high-backed chair in Sam Pratt’s keeping-room, dis¬ 
coursing with the Widow Gold. 

Two people more opposite in aspect could hardly be 
found. Mrs. Gold was not yet fifty, and retained 
much of her soft loveliness. Her cheek was still 
round and fair, her pale brown hair but slightly lined 
with gray, and the mild light of her eyes shone tenderly 
yet; though her figure was a little bent, and her hands 
knotted with worif. 

She looked fair and young in comparison with the 
grizzled, stern, hard-favored man before her. A 
far-off Scotch ancestry had bequeathed to him the 
high cheek-bones and deep-set eyes that gave him so 
severe an aspect; and to these an aquiline nose, a 
cruel, pinched mouth, a low forehead, and a sallow, 
wrinkled skin, added no charms. But the charm of 
old association brought him a welcome here. Bas¬ 
sett was the home of Mrs. Gold’s childhood, and she 
nad a great many questions to ask. Her face gath 


376 


somebody’s neighboes 


ered color and light as she recalled old affections and 
sj^rapathies ; and the deacon took a certain satisfaction 
in looking at her. But this was a mere ripple above 
his serious intention. He meant business, and could 
not waste time: so, as soon as there came a little lull 
in Mrs. Gold’s fluent reminiscences, he curtly began, — 

“ I came over to-day on an arrand. Miss Gold, —I 
may say quite a ser’ous arrand. I lost my companion, 
I suppose ye know, a year ago come September the 
10th. She was a good woman. Miss Flint was, savin’ 
and reasonable as ever was.” 

“I always heard her well spoke of,” modestly re¬ 
joined the widow. 

“ Yes, her children praise her in the gates, — or they 
would hev, if she’d had any. I feel her loss. And 
Scripter says, ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’ 
Scripter is right. You are a woman that’s seen afflic¬ 
tion too. Miss Gold: you’ve passed under the rod. 
Well, folks must be resigned: professors like you and 
me have got to set example. We can’t fault the Lord 
when he takes our companions away, and say, ‘ Why do 
ye so?’ as though ’twas a man done it. We’ve got 
this treasure in earthen vessels. Well, to come to the 
p’int, I come over to-day to see ef you wa’n’t willin’ 
to consider the subject of uniting yourself to me in the 
bonds of marriage.” 

“ Oh ! ” said the astonished widow. 

“I don’t want to hurry ye none,” he went on: 
“ take time on’t. I should like to get my answer right 
off; but I can make allowance for bein’ onexpected. 
I’ll come agin next week — say this day week. I 
hope you’ll make it a subject of prayer, and I expect 
you’ll get light on your duty by that time. I’ve got 


MRS. flint's married EXPERIENCE. 877 

ft good house and a good farm, and I’ll do well by ye. 
And, moreover and besides, you know Mr. Pratt’s 
folks are pressed some for room. I expect. I guess 
they won’t stand in the way of your goin’ to Bassett. 
Good-day, good-day. ’ ’ 

And the widow received a calm up-and-down hand¬ 
shake, with which decorous caress the deacon — for 
we cannot call him the lover — departed, leaving Mrs. 
GoM in a state of pleased amazement, partly because 
she was a woman and a widow, partly because it was 
Deacon Flint who had asked her to marry him; for 
the deacon was a pillar in Bassett church, owned a 
large farm and a goodly square house, and was a 
power in the State, having twice been sent to the Gen¬ 
eral Assembly. She could not but be gratified by the 
preference, and as she pondered on the matter it grew 
more feasible. Her girl was hers no longer, but a 
wife and mother herself; and she who had been all in 
all to Mindwell was now little more than ‘ ‘ grandma ’ ’ 
in the house, — a sort of suffered and necessary burden 
on Samuel’s hands. But here a home of her own was 
offered her, a plaee of dignity among other women, — 
a place where she could ask her children to come to 
her, and give rather than receive. 

There is nothing so attractive to a woman who is no 
longer young as the idea of a home. The shadow of 
age and its infirmities affrights her; loneliness is a 
terror in the future ; and the prospect of drifting about 
here and there, a dependent, poor, proud, unwelcome, 
when flesh and heart fail, and the ability to labor is 
gone, makes any permanent shelter a blessed pros¬ 
pect, and draws many a woman into a far more dread¬ 
ful fate than the work-house mercies or the colder char 
\ly of relatives. 


378 


somebody’s neighbors. 


This terror was strong in Mrs Gold’s feeble heait. 
She was one of the thousands of women who cannot 
trust what they do not see, and she misjudged her 
daughter cruelly. Mindwell felt that to-day, as her 
mother avowed to her Deacon Flint’s offer and her own 
perplexities. When Mrs. Gold asserted that her 
daughter could never understand what it was to lose a 
husband, Mindwell felt a sure but unspoken conviction 
that the terror of such a bereavement, which con¬ 
fronted her whenever her heart leaped up to meet 
Samuel, was experience enough for her to interpret 
thereby the longings of a real bereavement; but she 
only colored faintly, and answered, — 

“ Well, mother, I don’t see my way clear to offer you 
any advice. You must use your own judgment. You 
know Samuel and me think every thing of having you 
here; and the children just begin to know grandma 
by heart. But I don’t want to be self-seeking: if 
it’s for your best good, why, we sha’n’t neither of us 
say a word. I don’t skerce know how to speak about 
it, it’s so strange like and sudden. I can’t say no 
more than this : if you’re going to be happier and bet¬ 
ter off with Deacon Flint than with your own folks, we 
haven’t no right to hinder you, and we won’t.” 

Mindwell turned away with trembling lips, silent, 
because strong emotion choked her. If she had fallen 
on her mother’s neck and wept, and begged her to 
stay, with repeated kisses and warm embrace, Mrs. 
Gold never would have become Mrs. Flint; but she 
could not appreciate Mindwell’s feeling. She took her 
conscientious - self-control and candor for indifference, 
and her elderly lover loomed through this mist in 
grander proportions than ever. She resolved then and 
there that it was her duty to accept him. 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 379 


Mindwell had gone down staii’s to find her husband, 
who sat by the fire, fitting a rake-tail more firmly 'utc 
a hay-rake. He had been caught in a distant field by 
a heavy shower, and was steaming now close to the 
fireplace, where a heap of chips was lighted to boil the 
kettle for tea. Mindwell stole up to him, and laid one 
hand on his handsome head. He looked up, astonished 
at the slight caress, and saw his wife’s eyes were full 
of tears. 

“What’s the matter, darling?” he said in his 
cheery voice. It was like a kiss to her to have him 
say “ darling,” for sweet words were rare among their 
class ; and this was the only one he ever used, kept 
sacredly, too, for Mindwell. 

“ O Sam ! ” she answered, with a quiver in her deli¬ 
cate voice, “don’t you think. Deacon Flint wants to 
marry mother ! ’ ’ 

“Thunder an’ guns! You don’t mean it, wife? 
Haw, haw, haw! It’s as good as a general trainin’. 
Of all things ! What doos she say to’t? ” 

“Well, I’m ’most afraid she favors him a little. 
He’s given her a week’s time to consider of it; but, 
someway, I can’t bear to have it thought of.” 

“Don’t pester your head about it. Miss Pratt: you 
can’t make nor meddle in such things. But I’m free 
to own that I never was more beat in all my days. 
Why, Amasy Flint is town-talli for nearness an’ mean¬ 
ness. He pretends to be as pious as a basket o’ chips, 
but I hain’t no vital faith in that kind o’ pious. I 
v.’lieve in my soul he’s a darned old hypocrite.” 

“ O Sam, Sam ! you hadn’t ought to judge folks.” 

“I suppose I hadn’t, reelly; but you know what 
Scripter says somewhere or ’nother, that some follis’p 


380 


somebody's neighbors. 


sins are open, an’ go to judgment beforehand, and J 
guess his’ll do. I should hate to have mother take up 
with him.” ' 

“ What can we do, Sam? ” 

“Nothin’, streuoously. I don't know what ’tis 
about women-folks in such matters: they won’t bear 
no more meddlin’ with than a pa’tridge’s nest; you’ll 
spile the brood if you put in a finger. I’d say jest as 
much as I could about her bein’ always welcome here. 
I’ll do my part of that set piece o’ music; and that’s 
all we can do. If she’s set on havin’ him, she will; 
and you nor me can’t stop it. Miss Pratt.” With 
which sound advice, Sam rose from the milking-stool 
with his reconstructed rake, took down a coarse comb 
from the clock-case, ran it through his hair by way of 
toilet, and sat down to supper at the table with the 
three other hay-makers. Mindwell and her mother 
were going out to tea, so they did not sup with the 
men. 

After they came home, Sam expressed himself in a 
succinct but forcible manner to Mrs. Gold on the sub¬ 
ject of her marriage, and Mindwell attempted a faint 
remonstrance again ; but her morbid fear of selfishness 
shut the heart-throbs she longed to express to her 
mother back into their habitual silence. She and Sam 
both, trying to do their best, actually helped, rather 
than hindered, this unpropitious marriage. 

Mrs. Gold, in her heart, longed to stay with her chil¬ 
dren, but feared and disliked so heartily to be a bur¬ 
den on their hands, that she was unjust to herself and 
them too. A little less self-inspection, and a little 
more simple honesty of speech, would have settled this 
matter in favor of Mindwell and Colebrook: as it was, 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 381 

Deacon Flint carried the day. On the Friday follow¬ 
ing he arrived for his answer; his gray hair tied in a 
long cue, his Sunday coat of blue, and brass buttons, 
his tight drab pantaloons, ruffled shirt, and low boots, 
all indicating a ceremonial occasion. 

‘‘Gosh,” said old Israel Tucker, jogging along in 
his yeast-cart, as he met the gray mare in clean har¬ 
ness, whipped up by the deacon in this fine raiment, the 
old wagon itself being for once washed and greased, — 
“ gosh ! it’s easy tellin’ what he’s after. I should think 
them mulleins an’ hardbacks in the buryin’-ground 
would kinder rustle round. I don’t know, though; 
mabbe Miss Flint’s realized by now that she’s better 
off under them beauties of natur’ than she ever was in 
Amasy Flint’s house. Good land ! what fools women¬ 
folks be ! They don’t never know when they’re well 
off. She’s, had an easy time along back; but she’s 
seen the last on’t, she’s seen the last on’t. —Get up, 
Jewpiter.” 

Nothing daunted by any mystic or magnetic sense of 
this vaticination by the highway. Deacon Flint whipped 
up his bony steed still more, and to such good purpose 
that he arrived in Colebrook before the widow had 
taken down the last pinned-up curl on her forehead, or 
decided which of her two worked collars she would put 
on, and whether it would be incongruous to wear a 
brooch of blue enamel with a white centre, on which 
was depicted (in a fine brown tint produced by grind¬ 
ing up in oil a lock of the deceased Ethan Gold’s hair) 
a weeping-willow bending over a tomb, with an urn, 
and a date on the urn. This did seem a little personal 
on such an occasion : so she pinned on a blue bow in¬ 
stead, and went down to receive the expecting deacon. 


382 


somebody’s neighboes. 


“ I hope I see you well, ma’am,” said Mr. Flint. 

“Comfortably well, I’m obleeged to you,” was the 
prim answer. 

But the deacon was not to be daunted at this crisis: 
he plunged valiantly into the middle of things at once. 
“I suppose you’ve took into consideration the matter 
in hand. Miss Gold? ” 

The widow creased her handkerchief between her 
finger and thumb, and seemed to be critical about the 
hemming of it; but she pretty soon said softly, “ Yes, 
I can’t say but what I have thought on’t a good deal. 
I’ve counselled some with the children too.” 

“Well, I hope you’re fit and prepared to acknowl¬ 
edge the leadin’s of Providence to this end, and air 
about ready to be my companion through the valley of 
this world up to them fields beyond the swellin’ flood 
stands dressed in livin’ green. Amen.” 

The deacon forgot he was not in a prayer-meeting, 
and so dropped into the hymn-book, as Mr. Wegg did 
into secular poetry. 

“ H’m, well there’s a good deal to be thought of for 
and ag’inst it too,” remarked Mrs. Gold, unwilling to 
give too easy an assent, and so cheapen herself in the 
eyes of her acute adorer. But, when her thoughts were 
sternly sifted down, they appeared to be slight matters ; 
and the deacon soon carried his point. He wasted no 
time in this transaction. Having “shook hands cn 
it,” as he expressed himself, he proceeded at once to 
arrange the programme. 

“Well, Sarepty, we’re both along in years, and to 
our time o’ life delays is dangerous. I think we’d 
better get married pretty quick. I’m keepin’ that 
great lazy Polly Morse, and payin’ out cash right 


MRS. FLINT S MARRIED EXPERIENCE. 383 


along; and you no need to fix up any, you've got good 
clothes enough: besides, what’s clothes to worms of 
the dust seeh as we be? The Catechism says ‘Man’s 
chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever; ’ 
and if that’s so,-—and I expect 'tis so,—why, ’tain’t 
nothin’ to be concerned about what our poor dyin’ 
bodies is clothed in.” 

Mrs. Gold did not agree with him at all. She lilted 
her clothes, as women ought to; but his preternatural 
piety awed her, and she said meekly enough, “Well, 1 
don’t need no great of gowns. I sha’n’t buy but one, 
I don’t believe.” 

A faint color stole to her cheek as she said it, for 
she meant a wedding-dress; and Deacon Flint was 
acute enough to perceive it, and to understand that this 
was a point he could not carry. 

“ One gown ain’t neither here nor there, Sarepty; 
but.I aim to fix it on your mind, that, as I said afore, 
delays is dangerous. I purpose, with the divine bless- 
in’, to be married this day two weeks. I suppose 
you’re agreeable?” The widow was too surprised to 
deny this soft impeachment; and he went on, “Ye 
see, there’s papers to be dr awed up : you’ve got inde¬ 
pendent means, and so have I, and it’s jest as well to 
settle things fust as last. Did Ethan Gold leave you 
a life-int’rest in your thirds, or out an’ out? ” 

The widow’s lip trembled: her dead husband had 
been careful of her, more careful than she knew, till 
now. 

“ He didn’t will me no thirds at all: he left me use 
an’ privilege, for my nateral life, of every thing that 
was his’n, and all to go to Mindwell when I’m gone.” 

“Do tell! He was forehanded, I declare for’t! ” 


384 


somebody’s neighboes. 


exclaimed the deacon, both pleased and displeased; 
for, if his wife’s income was to be greater than he sup¬ 
posed, in case of her death before his there would be 
no increase to his actual possessions. 

“Well, I always calc’lated you had your thirds, an’ 
orob’ly, knowin’ Ethan was free-handed, you had ’em 
out an’ out. This makes some difference about what 
papers I’ll have to have drawed up. Now, I guess the 
best way is to have a agreement lilie this : I agree not 
to expect to hev an’ to hold none of your property, an’ 
you don’t none of mine; but I to have the use of 
your’n, and you to have your livin’ out o’ mine. You 
see, you don’t have no more’n your livin’ out of your’n 
now: that’s all we any of us get in this here world. 
‘Kevin’ food an’ raiment, let us therewith be content,’ 
as Scripter says. You agree to this, don’t ye? ” 

Bewildered with the plausible phrases ballasted by a 
text, unaware that even the Devil can quote Scripture 
to serve his turn, Mrs. Gold did not see that she was 
putting herself entirely into the hands of this man, and 
meekly agreed to his arrangement. If this story were 
not absolutely true, I should scarce dare to invent such 
a character as Deacon Flint. But he was once a living 
man, and hesitating to condemn him utterly, being now 
defenceless among the dead, we can but hope for him 
and his like that there are purifying fires beyond this 
life, where he may be melted and refined into the image 
of Him who made him a man, and gave him a long life 
here to develop manhood. Not till after he was gone 
did Mrs. Gold begin to think that he had left her to 
explain his arrangements to Mind well and Sam, and 
instinctively she shrank from doing so. Like many 
another weak woman, she hated words, particularly 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 385 

hard words. Her life had flowed on in a gentle routine, 
BO peacefully that she had known but one sorrow, and 
that was so great, that, with the propensity we all have 
to balance accounts with Providence, she thought her 
trouble had been all she could bear. But there was 
yet reserved for her that sharp attrition of life which is 
so different from the calm and awful force of sorrow, — 
so much more exasperating, so much more educating. 
Some instinct warned her to avoid remonstrance by 
concealing from her children the contract she was about 
to make, and she felt, too, the uncertainty of a woman 
unaccustomed to business, about her own clear under¬ 
standing of the situation. So she satisfied herself with 
telling Mind well of the near approach of her marriage. 

“O mother, so soon ! ’’ was all Mindwell said, though 
her eyes and lips spoke far more eloquently. 

“Well, now the thing’s settled, I don’t know but 
what it may as well be over with. We ain’t young 
folks, Mindwell. ’Tain’t as if we had quite a spell to 
live.” 

Tears stood in her eyes as she said it. A certain 
misgiving stole over her: just then it seemed a good 
thing that she could not live long. 

Mindwell forced back the sob that choked her. A 
woman of single heart, she did not consider a second 
marriage sacred. For herself, she would rather have 
^aken her children to the town-farm, cold as corporative 
charity is, than married another man than Samuel, even 
if he had been dead thirty years ; and she bitterly re¬ 
lented this default of respect to her father’s memory. 
But lier filial duty came to the rescue. 

“Dear mother, I can’t bear to think of it. Wliai 
shall I do ? What will the children say ? I did hope 
vou would take time to consider.” 


886 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“ It ain’t real dutiful in you to take me to do, Mind- 
well : I’m full old to be lessoned, seems to me. As 
for you and the children, I don’t feel no great distress : 
love runs down, not up, folios say; and I don’t believe 
you’ll any of ye pine a long spell.” 

This weak and petulant outburst dismayed MindweU, 
who had never seen her mother otherwise than gentle 
and pleasant; but, with the tact of a great heart, she 
said nothing, only put her arms about the elder woman’s 
neck, and kissed her over and over. At this, Mrs. 
Gold began to cry ; and, in soothing her distress. Mind- 
well forgot to ask any fmother questions, but set herself 
to divert both their minds from this brief and bitter 
outburst by inquiring what preparation her mother 
meant to make in the fortnight. 

“I don’t look to no great preparation,” sighed the 
widow. “I have always had good clothes enough, 
and there’s a piece of linen I wove before we come 
heie that’ll do for all I want. I suppose I had ought 
to have a new gown to be married in. When I was 
married to Ethan, I had a white dimity gown and a 
blue levantine petticoat; and if he didn’t fetch me a 
big bunch of sand-violets—they was blossoming then — 
for to match my eyes and my skirt, he said. But that’s 
past and gone, as the hymn-book says. I do want to 
nave one good gown, Mindwell; and, now I’m a little 
along in years, I guess I’ll have a dark one. T’other 
night, when we was up to Squire Barnes’s to tea. Miss 
Barnes was telling about a piece of plum-colored 
paduasoy Mr. Battle bought in liar’ford for ’Lecty’s 
veddin’-gown, and she wouldn’t hev it. She said 
’twasn’t lively enough, and so she’s set her mind on a 
blue levantine. But I should think the plum-coloi 
vould become me real well.” 


MP.S. flint’s maeeied experience. 887 


So the plum-colored silk was bought; aud arrayed in 
its simple folds, with a new worked collar and a white 
satin bow, the Widow Gold was dressed for her second 
wedding. 

Did she think, as she looked into her oval mirror 
that morning, what a different vision was this quiet, 
elderly, sober woman, in decent but not festal gar¬ 
ments, from the smiling, blushing, blue-eyed creature 
in her spotless dimity gown opening over a blue petti¬ 
coat, and clasped at the throat with a bunch of still 
bluer violets ? What does a woman think who is mar¬ 
ried the second time ? A man is satisfied that now his 
house will be kept once more, his clothes mended, his 
whims humored, his table spread to his taste, and 
his children looked after. If it is needful, he can 
marry six wives one after the other. They are a do¬ 
mestic necessity: the Lord himself says it is not good 
for man to be alone. But it is quite another thing for 
the woman. Such a relation is not a movable feast to 
her: it is once for all; and, if circumstance or pique 
betray her into this faithlessness, what does she think 
of herself w’hen it becomes inevitable ? 

The Widow Gold did not tell. She was paler when 
she turned from the glass than when she looked into 
it: and she trembled as she went down stairs to sign 
the papers before Parson Roberts should arrive. 

The best parlor was opened to-day. The high- 
backed chairs with old brocade cushions, that had be¬ 
longed to Sam Pratt’s grandmother, were ranged along 
the wall like a row of stiff ghosts ; the corner-cupboards 
were set open to display the old china and glass that 
^llcd them; there was a “bow-pot” of great red 
oeonies, abundant and riotous with color and fatness, 


388 


somebody’s neighbors. 


set under the chimney in the well-whited fireplace ; and 
a few late roses glowed in a blue china jar on the high 
mantelpiece. On a square table with a leaf lay a legal 
paper that Sam was reading, with his hands supporting 
his head as if it was hard to understand the document. 

The deacon, in his Sunday garments, was looking at 
him askance; and Min dwell, with the little girls Ede 
and Sylvia clinging to her gown, was staring out of 
the window, down the road, — staring, but not seeing; 
for the splendid summer day that lavished its bloom 
and verdure and odor on these gaunt New-England 
hills, and hid their rude poverty with its royal mantle, 
was all a dim blur to the heart-wrung woman. 

“Mother,’" said Sam Pratt, raising his head, “do 
you know what's the sum and substance of these here 
papers ? and do you agree to’t? ” 

The widow glanced aside at Deacon Flint, and caught 
his “married eye,” early as it was to use that ocular 
weapon. 

“Why, yes, S am well: I don’t know but what I 
do,” she said slowly and rather timidly. 

“Well,” said Sam, rising, and pushing the paper 
away, “ if you do, why, then you’re going right into’t, 
and it’s right, I s’pose ; but, by Jinks ! I think it’s the 
d—” 

Mindwell’s touch on his arm arrested the sentence. 

‘ There’s Parson Roberts, Samwell. You jest help 
him out of the gig, will you? He’s quite lame, I see.” 

Sam Pratt went, with the half-finished sentence on 
his lips. He was glad his wife had stopped him, on 
many accounts; but he did long to give Deacon Flint 
his own opinion of that preliminary contract. 

He indulged himself for this deprivation, after the 


MKS. flint’s MAERIED EXPERIENCE. 389 

stiff and somewhat melancholy wedding was over, and 
the staid couple had departed for Bassett in the deacon’s 
wagon, by freeing his mind to his wife. 

‘ ‘ Miss Pratt, I was some riled to hev you stop me 
when I was a-goin’ to tell the deacon what I thought 
about that there contrack ; but I don’t never stay riled 
with you, marm, as you’d ought to know by this time.” 
And Sam emphasized this statement with a hearty kiss. 
“ Besides, I will own on second thoughts I was glad 
you did stop me ; for it’s no use pinchin’ your fingers 
in a pair o’ nippers. But I do say now and here, it 
was the darndest piece o’ swindlin’ I ever see, — done 
under a cover of law an’ gospel, j^ou may say; for the 
deacon had stuck in a bit of Scripter so’s to salt it like. 
He’s got the best of the bargain, I tell ye, a long sight 
I’m real glad your father went and fixed that prop’ty 
so she has the use on’t only ; for she wouldn’t have two 
cents in two years’ time, if she’d had it to do with what 
she’s a mind to.” 

‘‘I am glad he did,” said Mindwell. “I have felt 
as though mother would be better suited if she did have 
it to do what she liked to with; but if this was to 
happen, why, it’s as good she is provided for. She 
can’t want for nothing now.” 

“ I guess she’ll want for more’n money, and mabbc 
for that too. The paper says she’s to have her livin’. 
A'ow, that’s a wide word. FoUiS can live on bread and 
water, I expect; and he can’t be holden for no more 
than he’s a mind to give.” 

‘‘O Sam, you don’t think Deacon Flint would 
grudge her a good living ? Why, if he is near, as folks 
tell he is, he’s a professor of religion.” 

“ I’d a durned sight ruther he was a practiser on’t, 


890 


somebody’s neighbors. 


Miss Pratt. Peligion’s about the best thing there is, 
and makin^ believe it is about the wust. I b’lieve in 
Amasy Flint’s religion jest so far forth as I hear him 
talk, an’ not a inch farther. I know he’ll pinch an’ 
shave an’ spare to the outside of a cheese-rind; and I 
haven’t no great reason to think he’ll do better by 
Mother Gold than he does by himself.” Mindwell 
turned away, full of foreboding; and Sam, following 
her, put his arm about her, and drew her back to the 
settle. 

‘‘ Don’t worry, dear. She’s made her bed, and she’s 
got to lie on’t. But, after all, it’s the Lord who lets 
folks do that way, so’s to show ’em, I expect, that 
beds ain’t always meant to sleep on, but sometimes to 
wake folks up. We’re kind of apt to lie long an’ get 
lazy on feathers. I expect that’s what’s the matter 
with me. I’ll get my husks by and by, I guess.” 

Mindwell looked up at him, with all her heart in her 
eyes; but she said nothing, and he gave a shy laugh. 
Their deep love for each other was ‘ ‘ a fountain shut 
up ; ” and so far no angel had rolled away the stone, 
and given it visible life. It was still voiceless and 
sleeping. 

Before her wedding-day was over, Mrs. Flint’s new 
life began ; for Polly Morse had been sent off the night 
before, being the end of an even week, lest she might 
charge ninepence for an extra day. So her successor 
without wages had to lay aside her plum-colored silk, 
put on a calimanco petticoat and short-gown, and pro¬ 
ceed to get supper; while Polly, leaning over the half¬ 
door of the old red house which she shared with the 
village tailoress, exchanged pungent remarks with old 
Israel on the topic of the day in Bassett. 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. .391 


“No^ they didn’t make no weddin’, Isr’el. There 
wa’n’t nobody asked, nor no loaf-cake made for hei”. 
he wouldn’t hear to’t, noway. I’d have staid and 
fixed up for her to-day ; but he was bound I shouldn’t. 
As for me, I’m most amazin’ glad to get hum, now I 
tell ye. I’d a sight ruther be in Simsbmy prison for a 
spell, if it wa’n’t for the name on’t.” 

“ Say, Polly, do you call to mind what I said three 
weeks back about Miss Flint cornin’ home ? Oh ! ye do, 
do ye? Well, I ain’t nobody’s fool, be I? I guess I 
can see through a millstone, providin’ the hole’s big 
enough, as well as the next man. I’m what ye., may 
call mighty obsarvin’, now. I can figger consider’ble 
well on folks, ef I can’t on ’rithmetic; and I know’d 
jest as well, when I see him rigged up in his sabba’-day 
go-to-meetin’s, and his nose p’inted for Colebrook, what 
he was up to, as though I heerd him a-askin’ her to 
hev him.” 

“Well, I never did think Sarepty Gold would de¬ 
mean herself to have him. She’s got means and a real 
good home; and Mindwell sets a sight by her, and so 
does Sam Pratt: but here she’s ben an’ gone an’ done 
it. I wouldn’t ha’ thought it, not if th’ angel Gabriel 
had have told me on’t.” 

“ Guess he’s in better business than goin’ round with 
Bassett gossip, anyhow. But what was you so took 
\ackby? Lordy ! I should think you was old enough 
to git over bein’ surprised at wotnen-folks: them and 
the weather is two things I don’t never calc’late on. 
You can’t no more tell what a woman’ll do, ’specially 
about marryin’, than 3^ou can tell which way in the road 
a pig’ll go, onless you work it back’ard, same as some 
follis tell they drive a pig; and then ’tain’t reel reli* 


392 


somebody’s neighbors. 


able: they may go right ahead when you don’t a mite 
expect it.” 

“That is one thing about men, I allow, Isr’el: you 
can always tell which way they’ll go for sartain; and 
that is after their own advantage, an’ nobody else’3, 
now an’ forever.” 

“Amen! They’d be all fools, like me, if they 
didn’t,” assented the old man, with a dry chuckle, as 
he drove off his empty cart. Yet, for all his sneers and 
sniffs, neither Polly nor the new Mrs. Flint had a truer 
friend than Israel. Rough as he was, satiric as a chest¬ 
nut burr that shows all its prickles in open defiance, 
conscious of a sweet white heart within, his words only 
were bitter: his nature was generous, kindl}^, and per¬ 
ceptive. lie had become the peripatetic satirist and 
philosopher that he was out of this very nature, 

“Dowered with a scorn of scorn, a love of love,” 

and free with the freedom of independent poverty to 
express pungently what he felt poignantly, being in his 
own kind ana measure the ‘ ‘ salt of the earth ’ ’ to 
Bassett. 

But, in spite of comment and pity, the thing was a 
fixed fact. Mrs. Flint’s married life had begun under 
new auspices, and it was not a path of roses upon 
which she had entered. Her housekeeping had always 
been frugal, with the thrift that is or was characteristic 
of her race ; but it had been abundant for the wants of 
her family. The viands she provided were those of 
the place and period, simple and primitive enough; but 
the great brick oven was well filled with light bread of 
wheat and rye both; ];)ies of whatever material was in 
season, whose fiaky crust and well-filled interiors testi- 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 393 


fied to her knowledge of the art; deep dishes of baked 
beans; jars of winter pears; pans of golden-sweet 
apples; and cards of yellow gingerbread, with rows of 
snowy and puffy biscuit. Ede and Sylvia knew very 
well where to find crisp cookies and fat nut-cakes ; and 
pie was reiterated three times a day on Sam Pratt’s 
table. 

It was a part of her “ pride of life” that she was a 
good housekeeper; and Mindwell had given her the 
widest liberty. But now the tide had changed. She 
soon found that Deacon Flint’s parsimony extended 
into every detail. Her pies were first assailed. 

“ Sarepty, don’t make them pies o ’your’n so all-fired 
rich. They ain’t good for the stomach: besides, they 
use up all the drippin’s, and you had ought to make 
soap next month. Pie is good, and I think it’s savin’ 
of meat. But it pompers up the flesh, too good livin’ 
does ; and we hev got to give an account, ye know. I 
don’t mean to have no wicked waste laid to my ac¬ 
count.” 

So she left out half the shortening from her crust, 
and felt ashamed to see the tough substance this 
economy produced. Next came the sugar question. 

“We buy too much sweetenin’, Sarepty. There’s 
a kag of tree-molasses down cellar. I exnect it’s 
worked some ; but you jest take an’ bile it up, an’ stir 
consiaer'blc saleratus into’t, an’ it’ll do. I want to get 
along jest as reasonable as we can. Wilful waste 
makes wofui want, ye know.” 

Yet in his own way the deacon was greedy enough. 
He had the insatiable appetite that belongs to people 
Df his figure far more often than to the stout. 

“He’s a real racer,” said Uncle Israel, reverting tc 


somebody’s neighbors. 




his own experience in pigs, — “slab-sided an’ lank. 
I bet you could count his ribs this minnit; and that’s 
the kind you can feed till the day after never, and they 
won’t do ye no credit. I never see a man could punish 
vittles the way he can; but there ain’t no more fat to 
him than there is to a hen’s forehead.” 

Mrs. Flint was not “ hungry nor hankering,” as she 
expressed it, but a reasonable eater of plain food ; but 
the deacon’s mode of procedure was peculiar. 

“ Say, Sarepty, don’t bile but a small piece o’ pork 
with that cabbage to-day. I’ve got a pain to my head, 
an’ I don’t feel no appetite ; an’ cold pork gets eat up 
for supper when there ain’t no need on’t.” 

Obeying instructions, the small piece of fat pork 
would be cooked, and, once at the table, transferred 
bodily to the deacon’s plate. “ Seems as though my 
appetite had reelly come back. I guess ’twas a hun¬ 
gry headache.” And the tired woman had to make 
her dinner from cabbage and potatoes seasoned with 
the salt and greasy water in which they had been 
cooked. 

There were no amusements for her out of the house. 
The younger people had their berrying frolics, sleigh- 
rides, kitchen-dances, nuttings, and the like ; and their 
elders, their huskings, apple-bees, and sewing-societies : 
but against all these the deacon set his hard face. 

“ It’s jest as good to do your own extry chores your¬ 
self as to ask folks to come an’ ‘help. That costs 
more’n it comes to. You’ve got to feed ’em, and like 
enough keep a big fire up in the spare room. I’d ruther 
oe diligent in business, as Scripter says, than depend 
j)n neighbors.” 

The sewing’Society, too, was denied to poor Mrs. 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 396 


n'.Qt, because they had to have tea got for them 
Prayer-meetings he could not deny her; for they cost 
nothing, and officially he attended them. Meeting on 
Sunday was another outlet, when she coaid see friendly 
taces, receive kind greetings, and read in many eyes a 
sympathy and pity that at once pleased and exasper¬ 
ated her. 

Another woman in her place might have had spirit 
or guile enough to have resisted the pressure under 
which she only quailed and submitted. She was one 
of those feeble souls to whom a hard word is like a 
blow, and who will bear any thing and every thing 
rather than be found fault with, and who necessarily 
become drudges and slaves to those with whom they 
live, and are despised and ill-treated simply because 
they are incapable of resentment. There are some 
persons who stand in this position not so much from 
want of strength as from abounding and eager affec¬ 
tion for those whom they serve; and their suffering, 
when they discover how vain has been their labor and 
self-sacrifice, is known only to Him who was 

“ At once denied, betrayed, and fled 
By those who shared his daily bread.” 

But Mrs. Flint had no affection for her husband: she 
married him because it seemed a good thing to do, and 
uueyed him because he was her husband, as was the 
custom in those days. So she toiled on dumbly from 
day to day, half fed, overworked, desperately lonely, 
but still uncomplaining ; for her constitution was natu¬ 
rally strong, and nerves were unrecognized then. 

Her only comfort was the rare visits of her children. 
Mind well found it hard to leave home ; but, suspicious 


396 


somebody’s neighboes. 


of her mother’s comfort, she made every effoit to see 
her as often as possible, and always to caiTy her some 
little present, — a dozen fresh eggs, which the poor 
woman boiled privately, and ate between her scanty 
meals, a few peaches, or a little loaf of cake, — small 
gifts, merely to demonstrate her feeling. She did not 
know what good purpose they served, for Mrs. Flint 
did not tell her daughter what she endured. She 
remembered too well how Mindwell had begged her to 
delay and consider her marriage; and she would not 
own to her now that she had made any mistake: for 
Mrs. Flint had as much human nature in her composi¬ 
tion as the rest of us ; and who does like to hear even 
their dearest friend say, “ I told you so ” ? 

Matters went on in this way for five years, every 
day being a little more weary and dreary than the pre¬ 
ceding. The plum-colored paduasoy still did duty as 
the Sunday gown, for none of her own money ever 
passed into Mrs. Flint’s hands. By this time she 
understood fully what her ante-nuptial contract meant. 
She had her living, and no more. People could live 
without finery, even without warmth. A stuff gown of 
coarse linsey-woolsey for winter wear replaced the soft 
merinoes she had always bought for that purpose ; and 
homespun linen check was serviceable in summer, 
though it kept her busy at flax-wheel and loom many 
an hour. She had outlived the early forbearances of 
her married life, and learned to ask, to beg, to persist 
in entreating, for what she absolutely needed; for only 
in this way could she get her “ living.” Her only vivid 
pleasure was in occasional visits from Ede and Sylvia, 
— lovely little creatures in whom their mother’s beauty 
of character and theii' father’s cheery, genial nature 


MRS. flint's married EXPERIENCE. 397 


seemed to combine, and with so much of Mindwell’s 
delicate loveliness, her sweet, dark eyes contrasted with 
the fair hair of their father’s family, that to grand¬ 
motherly eyes they seemed perfectly beautiful. Fcr 
them the poor woman schemed and tolled, and grew 
secretive. She hid a comb of honey sometimes, when 
the deacon’s back was turned, and kept it for Sylvia, 
who loved honey like a real bee-bird ; she stored up red 
pearmains in the parlor-closet for Ede ; and when Sam 
Pratt went into Hartford with a load of wool, and 
brought the children as far as Bassett to stay at Dea¬ 
con Flint’s over night, the poor woman would make for 
them gingerbread such as they remembered, and savory 
cookies that they loved, though she encountered hard 
looks, and hard words too, for wasting her husband’s 
substance on another man’s children. 

Ede, who had a ready memory and a fluent tongue, 
was the first to report to Mindwell these comments of 
“ Grandsir Flint,” as they were taught to call him. 

“O mother,” she exclaimed, “ I do think grandsir 
is real mean ! ” 

“Edy, Edy, you mustn’t talk so about your elders 
and betters.” 

“I can’t help it,” chattered on the irrepressible 
child. “What did he want to come into the kitchen 
for when granny was giving us supper, and scold 
because she made cookies for us ? Granny ’most cried; 
and he kept tollin’ how he’d said before she shouldn’t 
do it, and he wouldn’t have it.” 

“Don’t talk about it, Edy,” said her mother, full 
of grief and indignation. 

“Mother, it’s true. I heard him too,” interposed 
Sylvia, who thought Ede’s word was doubted; for the 


398 


somebody’s neighbors. 


voluble and outspoken child was a little apt to embel¬ 
lish her reports. 

“Well, Sylvy dear, it isn’t best to talk about a good 
many things that are true.” 

But, for all that. Mind well did discuss the mattei 
with Sam before she slept, in that “grand committee 
of two ” which is the strength and comfort of a happy 
marriage. 

“What ever can we do about it, Sam?” she said, 
with tears in her voice. “I can’t bear to keep the 
children to home, — mother sets by ’em like her life ; 
but, if they’re going to make trouble between her 
and Deacon Flint, don’t you think I had ought to pre¬ 
vent their going there? ” 

“Well, it does seem hard on mother every way; but 
I guess I can fix it. You know we had a heap of 
wheat off that east lot last year, and I’ve sent it to 
mill to be ground up for us. I guess I’ll take and 
send a barrel on’t over to mother for a present. The 
deacon won’t mistrust nothing ; nor he can’t say noth¬ 
ing about her usin’ on’t for the children.” 

“That’s the very thing,” said Mindwell. And so 
it was, for that small trouble ; yet that was only a drop 
in the bucket. After a few years of real privation, 
and a worse hunger of spirit, Mrs. Flint’s health 
began to fail. She grew nervous and irritable, and 
the deacon browbeat her more than ever. Her tem¬ 
per had long since failed under the hourly exaspera¬ 
tion of her husband’s companionship, and she had 
become as cross, as peevish, and as exasperating 
herself as a feeble nature can become under such a 
pressure. 

“ I never see nobody so changed as Miss Flint is,” 


MES. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 399 

confided Aunt Polly to old Israel. “IVe always 
heerd tell that ’flictions was sent for folks's good ; but 
her’n don’t seem to work that way a mite.” 

“ Well, Polly, I expect there’s a reel vital differ’nce 
in ’flictions, jest as there is in folks. She picked her’n 
up, as you may say, when she married him. ’Twan’t 
reelly the Lord’s sendin’. She no need to ha’ married 
him, if she hadn’t ben a min’ to.” 

“I sorter thought the Lord sent every thing’t hap¬ 
pened to folks.” 

“Well, in a manner mabbe he doos. But don’t ye 
rek’lect what David said, — how’t he’d ruther fall 
inter the hands of the Lord than inter men’s? I 
expect we’re to blame for wilful sins, ain’t we ? And 
[ guess we fetch ’flictions on ourselves sometimes.” 

“I don’t see how you make them idees jibe with 
’lection and fore-ordination,” rejoined Aunt Polly, 
who was a zealous theologian, and believed the Say- 
brook Platform and the Assembly’s Catechism to be 
merely a skilful abridgment and condensation of Scrip¬ 
ture. 

“I don’t know as I’m called to, Polly. I don’t 
believe the Lord’s ways is jest like a primer, for every¬ 
body to larn right off. I shouldn’t have no great 
respect for a ruler an’ governor, as the Confession 
sez, that wa’n’t no bigger’n I was. Land! ef I 
was to set sail on them seas o’ divinity, I should 
be snooped up in the fust gale, an’ drownded right 
off. I b’lieve He is good, and doos right, anyhow. 
Ef I can’t see the way on’t, why, it’s ’cause my spirit- 
ooal eyes ain’t big enough. I can’t see into some 
littler things than him, and I don’t hold to takin’ up 
the sea in a pint cup : ’twon’t carry it, nohow.” With 


400 


somebody’s neighbors. 


which aphorism old Israel travelled off with his bar- 
row, leaving PoUy amazed and shocked, but perhaps 
a little wiser after all. 

Just about this time a cousin of Deacon Flint’s died 
“ over in York State,” as he said, and left him guard¬ 
ian of her only daughter, a girl of eighteen. A couple 
of thousand dollars was all the property that the Widow 
Eldridge had to give her child; for they had both 
worked hard for their living after the husband and 
father left them, and this money was the price of the 
farm, which had been sold at his death. It was some¬ 
thing to get so much cash into his oWh hands ; and the 
deaeon accordingly wrote at once to Mabel, and offered 
her a home in his house, intimating, that, the interest of 
her money not being enough to board and clothe her, 
he would, out of family afifeetion, supply these necessi¬ 
ties for that inadequate sum, if she was willing to hel]) 
a little about the house. Mabel was friendless enougli 
to grasp eagerly this hope of a home ; and very soon 
the stage stopped at Deacon Flint’s door, and a new 
inmate entered his house. 

Mabel Eldridge was a capable, spirited, handsome 
girl, and, before she had been a week in the Flint 
lamily, understood her position, and resolved only to 
endure it till something better could be found. In 
her heart she pitied Aunt Flint, as she called her, as 
much as she detested the deacon ; and her fresh girlish 
heart fairly aehed with compassion and indignation 
over the poor woman. But she was a great com¬ 
fort and help while she staid; though she made that 
stay as short as possible, and utterly refused to give 
up her savings-bank book to the deacon, who was 
unal)le legally to claim it, since her mother left no will, 


MRS. flint's married EXPERIENCE. 401 


Iiaving only asked him, in a letter written just before 
her death, to act as Mabel’s guardian. Her three 
months’ sojourn in the house made her thoroughly 
aware of Deacon Flint’s character and his wife’s suf¬ 
ferings. She could not blame Mrs. Flint that she 
snapped back at the deacon’s snarls, or complained 
long and bitterly of her wants and distresses. 

“You don’t know nothing what it is, Mabel,” she 
said one day, sobbing bitterly. “I’m put upon so 
hard ! I want for clothes, and forvittles, and for some 
time to rest, so’s’t I don’t know but what ’twill clean 
kill me: and, if ’twa’n’t for the childern, I’d wish to 
die ; but I do cleave to them amazingly.” 

Indignant tears filled Mab’s eyes. “I don’t know 
how you bear it, aunty,” she said, putting her arms 
about the old lady’s neck. “ Can’t you get away from 
him anyhow? ” 

“ I could, but I suppose I hadn’t ought to. There’s 
a house on my farm that ain’t goin’ to be in use come 
next April. Iliram Smith — him that’s rented it along 
back — wants some repairin’ done on’t, and Mr. Flint 
won’t hear to’t: so Hi he’s been and gone and bought 
a piece of ground acrost the road, an’ put up a buildin’ 
for himself. He’s got a long lease of the land; but 
he don’t want the house no more, and he won’t pay 
for’t. I s’pose I might move over there for a spell, 
and have some peace. There’s enough old furnitoor 
there that was father’s. But then, agin, I do suppose I 
haven’t no right to leave my husband.” 

“Haven’t you got any right to save your life?” 
indignantly asked Mabel. 

“ It ha’n’t come to that, not quite,” said Mrs. Flint 
sadly. 


402 


somebody’s neighbors. 


But before April she began to think it was a matter 
of life and death to stay any longer with the man. 
Mabel had left her some months before, and gone 
into the family of Sam Pratt’s mother, in Colebrook, 
promising her aunt, that, if ever the time came when 
she needed her in another home, she would come and 
take care of her. 

Toward the middle of February Mrs. Flint was 
seized with congestion of the lungs, and was very ill 
indeed. A fear of public opinion made Deacon Flint 
send for the doctor; but nothing could induce him to 
let a nurse enter the house, or even to send for Mind- 
well Pratt. He was able to do for his wife, he said, 
and nobody could interfere. 

It was the depth of winter; and the communication 
between Bassett and Colebrook was not frequent in 
the best weather, neither place being dependent on the 
other for supplies; and now the roads were blocked 
with heavy drifts, and the inhabitants of both places 
had hibernated, as New-Englanders must in winter. It 
was a matter of congratulation with Deacon Flint that 
he had no out-door work to do just now, and so was 
spared the expense of a woman to care for his wife. 
He could do it, too, more economically than a nurse. 
It did not matter to him that the gruel was lumpy, or 
burned, or served without flavoring. Sick folks, par¬ 
ticularly with serious sickness, ought not to pamper the 
flesh: their souls were the things to be considered. 
He did not want to have Sarepta die, for she had an 
income that helped him much; but he did not want 
her to be a “ bill of expense,” as he phrased it. Sc 
while he read the Bible to her twice a day, and prayed 
vX>, or rather at, her by the hour, he fed her on sloppy 


MKS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 40o 

gruel and hard bread, sage-tea, and cold toast with¬ 
out butter, and just kept life flickering within her 
till she could get about and help herself, unknown to 
him, to draughts of fresh milk, and now and then a 
raw egg. 

Oo 

But she did not get well; she was feeble, and 
wasted a long time. The village doctor, knowing 
what Deacon Flint was, and filled with pity for his 
wife, called often, carefully stating that his visits were 
those of a friend, but urging, also, that Mrs. Flint 
should have a generous diet, and a glass of wine daily, 
to restore her strength. The deacon heard him through 
in silence, and when he left began to growl. 

“Well, fools a’n’t all dead yet. Wine! I guess 
not. A good drinli o’ thoroughwort-tea’s vruth all the 
wine in creation. ‘ Wine’s a mocker, an’ strong drink 
is ragin’.’ Dr. Grant don’t read his Bible as he’d 
ought to.” 

“There ain’t nothin’ in the Bible aginst beef-tea, I 
guess,” feebly piped his wife. “I do feel as though 
that would fetch me up. Can’t you get a piece o’ 
meat down to the slaughter, deacon ? ’ ’ 

“I don’t see no need on’t, Sarepty: you’re doin’ 
reasonable well. Meat is reel costly; an’ pomperin’. 
the flesh is sinful. I’ll git another cod-fish next time I 
go to the store: that’s nourishin’. I don’t hold to 
Grant’s idees entire. Besides, ’twa’n’t nothin’ what 
he said : he come as a friend.” 

The poor woman burst into tears. Indignation gave 
her momentary strength: she did not hear the shed- 
door open behind her; but she rose in her chair like a 
spectre, and looked at him with burning eyes. 

“ Amasy Flint, I b’lieve you’d a sight rather I’d die 


404 


somebody's neighbors. 


than live. I hain’t had decent vittles since I was took 
sick, nor no care whatever. You’re a loud pray-er an’ 
reader; but, if ’twa’n’t for the name of it, I b’lieve 
you’d kill me with the axe instead of starvation. I’ve 
a good mind to send for Squire Battle, and swear tb^ 
peace against ye.” 

Deacon Flint at this moment saw a shocked face 
behind his wife’s chair: it was Polly Morse. His 
acuteness came to the rescue. “ She’s a leetle out,” 
he said, nodding to the unexpected guest. “ Come 
right along, Polly.” 

This was too much for the weak woman to bear. She 
fell back, and fainted. Her indignation had overborne 
her weakness for a moment, but exhausted it also. 
And, when she awoke to life, Polly was rubbing her, 
and crying over her ; but her husband had gone. Those 
tears of sympathy were more than she could endure 
silently. She put her arms round Polly’s neck, and, 
sobbing like a child, poured out the long list of her 
sorrows into that faithful ear. 

“Bless your dear soul!” said Polly, wiping her 
eyes, “you can’t tell me nothing new about him. 
Didn’t I summer an’ winter him, so to speak, afore you 
come here ? Don’t I know what killed the fust woman ? 
’Twa’n’t no fever, ef they did call it so. ’Twas livin’ 
with him — want o’ food, an’ fire, an’ lovin’-kindness. 
Don’t tell me. I pitied ye afore ye was married, an’ I 
hain’t stopped yit.” 

But Polly’s words were not words only. From that 
day on, many a cup of broth, vial of currant-wine, 
or bit of hot stewed chicken, found its way surrepti¬ 
tiously to Mrs. Flint; and her strength of mind and 
eody returned fast, with this sympathy for one, and 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 405 


foo^ for the other. She made up her mind iit last 
that she would leave her husband, at least for a time, 
and in her own house endeavor to find the peace and 
rest necessary to her entire recovery. If she could 
have seen Mindwell and Sam, and taken counsel with 
them, her course might have been different; but the 
roads were now well-nigh impassable from deep mud, 
and she could not get to Colebrook, and in sheer des¬ 
peration she resolved to leave her present home as 
soon as Hiram Smith moved from the farmhouse. 
Fortunately for her, the deacon had to attend town¬ 
meeting, three miles off, on the first Monday in April; 
and, with Polly and Israel to help her, Mrs. Flint was 
established in the other house before he returned, and 
found her flown. His wrath was great but still. He 
said and did nothing, never went near her, and, for 
very shame’s sake, did not speak of her — for what 
could he say? 

Perhaps in that solitary house, whose silence was 
like balm to her weary and fevered soul, she might 
have starved but for the mercy of her neighbors. 
Polly Morse had a tongue of swiftness, and it never 
wagged faster than in Mrs. Flint’s behalf. Dr. Grant 
sent half a barrel of flour to that destitute dwelling, 
and Israel, a bushel of apples. Polly, out of her pov¬ 
erty, shared her kit of pork with the poor woman ; and 
Hiram Smith brought in a barrel of potatoes and a bag 
of meal, which he duly charged against her account 
with the farm. But there were many who dared not 
help her ; for the deacon held notes and mortgages on 
many a house and of many a man in Bassett who could 
not afford to offend him. And old Parson Roberts was 
just then shut up with an attack of low fever: so he 


406 


somebody’s neighbors. 


knew nothing about the matter. However, the deacon 
was not long to be left nursing his wrath. Food and 
fire are not enough for life sometimes. The old house 
was leaky, damp, comfortless; and in a few weeks 
Mrs. Flint was taken again with disease of the lungs, 
and Polly Morse found her in her bed, unable to speak 
loud, her fire gone out, and the rain dripping down in 
the corner of her bedroom. Polly had come to tell 
her that Israel was going to Colebrook to buy a pig, 
and would take any message. She did not tell her, 
but, stepping to the door, called to him across the yard 
to tell Sam Pratt he must come over to Bassett directly. 
This done, she hunted about for something to make a 
fire, and then looked for the tea; but there was none. 
Nothing like food remained but a half-loaf of bread 
and some cold potatoes : so she had to break the bread 
up in some hot water, and feed the exhausted woman 
slowly, while she chafed her icy feet, and covered her 
closely with her own shawl. The next day Sam and 
Mindwell came over, shocked and indignant, their 
wagon loaded with provisions; and the old house was 
soon filled with odors of beef-broth, milk-porridge, 
fragrant tea and toast, and the sharp crackle of a great 
fire in two rooms ; while, best of all, tender hands fed 
and soothed the poor woman, and soft filial kisses 
comforted her starved soul. 

Mindwell could not stay, —there was a little baby at 
home, — but Sam would be left behind while old Israel 
drove her back to Colebrook, and fetched Mabei 
Eldridge to take her place. 

Mab bm*st into a passion of tears when she entered 
ihe kitchen. 

“ I knew it! ” she sobbed; “I knew that old wretch 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 407 


vrould kill her! ** And it was long before Sam could 
calm her anger and grief, and bring her in to the 
invalid. 

In the course of two or three weeks, however, Mab’s 
faithful nursing, and Sam’s care and providing, brought 
back life and some strength to the perishing woman. 
And meanwhile Polly’s tongue had wagged well: it 
flew all over Bassett that Deacon Flint’s wife had left 
liim, and almost died of cold and hunger. 

To-day such a rumor would have had some direct 
effect on its object; but then to find fault with authori¬ 
ties was little less than a sin, and for a wife to leave 
her husband, a fearful scandal. In spite of the facts 
and all their witnesses, the sentiment of Bassett went 
with the deacon. Conjugal subjection was the fashion, 
or rather the principle* and custom, of the day, and 
was to be upheld in spite of facts. However, Parson 
Roberts by this time had heard of the matter, and 
called Deacon Flint to accoimt, thinking it to be his 
duty. 

“This is the hull sum and substance on’t, parson,’* 
explained the deacon: “ Miss Flint is a miser’ble hys- 
tericky female, a dreadful weak vessel, and noways 
inclined to foller Scripter in the marriage-relation. 
I’ve gin her the same livin’ I had myself. I hain’t 
denied her food an’ raiment wherewith she had ought 
to be content, as the ’Postle Poll says. But she is real 
pemickity, and given to the lusts of the flesh about her 
eatin’; and I feel it to be my dooty to be a faithful 
stooard of my substance, and not pomper up our poor 
perishin’ bodies, while there is forty million more or 
less o’ heathen creturs lyin’ in wickedness in foreign 
parts. Ye know, parson, I hain’t never stented mv 


408 


somebody’s neighbors. 


contributions to them things: I’ve ben constant tc 
means of grace alius, and I may say a pillar — mabbe 
a small and creaky one, but still a pillar — in the tem¬ 
ple sech as ’tis. I don’t know as I had ought to be 
disturbed by this strife of tongues.” 

Parson Roberts was a little confounded. He himself 
loved a bit of good eating, — a cantle of chicken-pie, a 
tender roast pig, a young chicken broiled on hickoi-y 
coals, or a succulent shad from the Connecticut, washed 
down with sparkling cider or foaming flip, — and the 
consciousness of this mild weakness gave undue exal¬ 
tation to Deacon Flint’s boasted asceticism. The par¬ 
son was too honestly hmnble to see that Deacon Flint 
loved money with a greed far surpassing that of any 
epicure ; that his own fault was but a failing, while the 
other was a passion. Besides, he considered that Mrs. 
Flint had made light of the sacred ordinance of mar¬ 
riage, and set ah awful example to the wives of the 
parish: so he went away from this interview convinced 
that the deacon was a stern saint, and his wife a weak 
mnner. 

Next day, however, the deacon himself was sur¬ 
prised by another visit. Pale and worn, clinging tight 
to Sam Pratt’s arm, and followed by Mabel carrying a 
cushion, his wife entered the kitchen, where he sat de¬ 
vouring salt pork and potatoes with the zest of a dog 
who gnaws his bone unmolested. 

“I come back, Amasy, to see if we couldn’t agree 
to get along together agin,” she said weakly and 
meekly. “I hear there’s ben consider’ble talk about 
my leavin’ on ye, and I don’t want to cast no reflec¬ 
tions. I was tired all out, an’ I wanted to rest a spell. 
Sam an’ Mab has nursed me up, so’t I could get along 
now, I guess.” 


MES. flint's married EXPERIENCE. 409 


Tile man turned his cold green-gray eyes on her 
slowly. ‘‘I don’t know what you want to come back 
for now,” he said. 

“ Why, I want for to do my duty so far as I can.” 

“You had oughter have considered that afore you 
went off,” was the dogged answer. 

Tears ran down the poor woman’s face: she could 
not speak. Mabel’s beautiful eyes blazed with wrath : 
she made a step forward; but Sam Pratt gently put 
her back, and said, — 

“ Look here. Deacon Flint. Mother left you because 
she hadn’t food, nor care, nor nothing she needed, 
nyther when she was sick, nor when she was gettin* 
better. She thought a spell o’ rest would do her good. 
She knowed by that smart contrack you got out of her 
that you owed her a livin’ anyhow; and you hain’t 
done a thing to’rds it sence she went to her own house. 
Now, I don’t call that conduct honest, by no means, 
much less Christian.” 

“Jedge not, Samwell Pratt. Scripter, no less’n 
statoot law, 'commands a wife to be subjeck to her hus¬ 
band. Sarepty had what I had. I done what I jedged 
best for her; and, instead of submittin’ to her head, 
she up and went off to live by herself, and lef’ me to 
git along as I could. I wa’n’t noway bound by no law 
nor no contrack to supply her with means, so long as 
she went away from her dooties, and made me an as¬ 
tonishment an’ a hissin’ in Israel, so to speak.” 

“ Stop right there ! ” broke in Mabel, furious. “ I’ve 
heard say the Devil could fetch Scripter to further his 
own purposes, and I b’lieve it. Didn’t you have no 
duties to your wife? Don’t the Bible say you've got 
to love and cherish her? Don’t tell me ! I lived here 


410 


somebody’s neighbors. 


long enough to see you starve and browbeat and tor¬ 
ment her. I know your mean, hateful, crabbed ways ; 
and I don’t know how she lived with you so long. She 
ought to have run away years ago ; and, if folks do hiss 
at you, it’s more’n time they did. Christian ! — you a 
Christian! You’re a dyed-in-the-wool hypocrite. If 
you’re pious, I hope I shall be a reprobate.” 

“I ha’n’t no doubt but what you will be, young 
woman,” answered the deacon with cold fury. 
“ You’d ought to be put under the pump this minnit, 
for a co mm on scold. Get out of my house, right 
off!” 

And with this he advanced upon her. But Sam 
Pratt, lifting the old lady in his arms, carried her away, 
and gently shoved Mabel, glowing with rage, before 
them till they reached the wagon. Then he himself 
went back, and tried to make terms with the deacon. 
At last, moved by the worldly wisdom of Sam’s argu¬ 
ment, that it would put him in a bad light before peo¬ 
ple if he refused to do any thing for his wife, he did 
agree to let her have half of his share of the produce 
from her farm, if Sam and Mindwell would provide for 
her other wants. And, making the best of a bad bar¬ 
gain, the poor woman retired to the old house, which 
Sam had repaired, so that most of it was habitable; 
and Mabel, who had agreed to teach the district school 
the next year, took up her abode with her. 

Now the deacon had a clear field, and appeared in 
the arena of Bassett in the character of an injured and 
foi*saken husband. His prayers at meeting were longer 
and more eloquent than ever; and the church, sym¬ 
pathizing with his sorrows, — the male members espe¬ 
cially deprecating Mrs. Flint’s example, lest it should 


MRS. flint’s IMAERIED EXPERIENCE. 411 


some time be followed by theii* own wives, — unani¬ 
mously agreed to withdraw their fellowship from Mrs. 
Flint, — a proceeding in kind, if not in degree, lil^e the 
anathema of the papacy. The poor old woman quiv¬ 
ered under the blow, imparted to her by Parson Rob¬ 
erts, awful in the dignity of his office and a new wig. 
But the parson was human; and the meek grief of the 
woman, set off by Mab’s blazing indignation, worked 
upon his honest soul, and caused him to doubt a little 
the church’s wisdom. Mab had followed him across 
the door-yard to the gate in order to “ free her mind.” 

“ I want to know what you wanted that poor woman 
to do. Parson Roberts. She was dyin’ by inches for 
want of vittles fit to eat, and the care most folks would 
give a sick ox. Do you think, now, honest, she’d 
ought to have staid with that old wretch ? ’ ’ 

“ Speak not evil of dignities, young woman. Amasy 
Flint is a deacon of Bassett church. It does not 
become you so to revile him.” 

This glittering generality did not daunt Mab a 
moment. 

“ I don’t care if he was deacon in the New Jerusa¬ 
lem, or minister either. If he was the angel Gabriel, 
and acted the way he did act, I shouldn’t have no faith 
in his piety, nor no patience with his prayers.” 

Parson Roberts glared at her over his spectacles with 
pious horror. “ What, what, what! ” he sternly cried. 
“Who be you that set in judgment on your elders 
and betters? ” 

“I’m one that’s seen him where you haven’t, any¬ 
way, nor your church-members. I’ve lived to his 
house, and I know him like a book.” 

Was it possible, the parson thought, that brother 


412 


somebody’s neighbors. 


Flint might have been in fault, — just a little? But he 
was faithful to his dogmas and his education. 

Do not excuse the woman’s sin. She has left hei 
lawful husband, threatened to swear the peace against 
a Christian man whom she was bound by human and 
divine law to obey, and caused a scandal and a dis¬ 
turbance in the fold of Christ. Is this a light matter, 
you daughter of Belial? ” 

Mab laughed, —laughed in the parson’s face, in full 
front of his majestic wig, his awful spectacles, his 
gold-headed cane uplifted in the heat of argument. 
He could not see that she was a little hysterical. He 
grew red with ungodly rage, but Mab did not care a 
pin. 

“You ain’t a fool. Parson Eoberts,” she said un¬ 
dauntedly. “ You’ve got eyes in your head; and you’d 
know, if you’d use ’em, that Aunt Flint is a weak 
sister anyway. She wouldn’t turn no sooner’n the 
least worm that ever was; but they will turn, if you 
tread right on ’em. And, whatever you say, you know, 
jest as well as I do, that Amasy Flint drove her into 
leavin’ him, and drove her with a whip of scorpions, 
as the Bible tells about.” 

“Woman, do you mean to say I lie?” thundered 
the parson. 

“Well, yes — if you don’t tell the truth,” returned 
Mab, completely at bay now. An audible chuckle be • 
trayed some listener; and the parson, turning round, 
oeheld old Israel silently unloading a wheelbarrow-load 
of potatoes at the corner of the fence, and wondered 
in his soul how long the man had been there, but con¬ 
sidered it the better part of valor to leave the scene, 
now that it had ceased to be a tete-a-tete: so lie waved 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 413 

his band at Mab with a gloomy scowl, and went his 
way. 

“ Land o’ liberty ! ” ejaculated the old man, drawing 
the back of his hand across his mouth to smother a 
laugh. “Didn’t you give him jesse! I swan you’re 
the gal for a free fight, now. He’s heerd the fac’s iis 
the case, if he never did afore. Of all things 1 AYhat 
be you a-cryin’ for now, eh?” For Mab, a real 
woman, had flung her apron over her face, and was 
sobbing violently. Uncle Israel gently tried to pull the 
check screen away ; but she held on to it. 

“ Let me cry,” she said. “I ain’t sorry : I’m mad, 
and I’ve got to cry it out.” 

“Well,” said Israel, returning to his potatoes, and 
slowly shaking his head, “ women-folks air the beat- 
eree. I don’t know nothing about ’em, and I’m five 
an’ sixty year old come Friday. Lordy ! there ain’t no 
riddles nor Chinee puzzle-rings to compare with ’em. 
I’ve hed a wife, an’ lost a wife, praise the Lord ! but I 
never was sure o’ her even. I wouldn’t no more try 
it agin than I’d slip down into a bee-tree; for there’s 
full as much stings as honey to ’em, and, take an ever- 
idge, I guess there’s more.” 

Whether or not the parson’s silent ideas coincided 
with those Israel expressed is not for the ignorant 
chronicler to say ; but it is ceilain that his candid and 
generous soul was so far moved by Mab’s tirade, how¬ 
ever he denied and defied it during its delivery, that 
the next day he resolved to call in a council of his 
neighboring brethren to discuss the matter, and indorse 
or reprobate the action of his own church. 

C50 he wrote to the Rev. Ami Dobbins of Dorset, 
ind the Rev. Samuel Jehoram Hill of Bassington, 


414 


somebody’s neighbors. 


better known as Father Hill; and, in compliance with 
his request, they repaired to Bassett, and investigated 
the ihatter. Being advised of the pastor, who had Lad 
his experiences, they went to Mrs. Flint’s during school- 
hours ; and Mabel had no chance to pour out her soul 
before them. They encountered only a pale, depressed, 
weak woman, who was frightened out of what little 
heart was left her by past trials, when these two august 
personages came into her presence, and with severe 
countenances began their catechism of her life with 
Deacon Flint. As in the case of many another woman, 
her terror, her humiliation, and a lingering desire to 
shield her husband from his own misdeeds, all conspired 
against her. Her testimony was tearful, confused, and 
contradictory; though through it all she did feebly insist 
on her own sufferings, and depicted them in honest 
colors. From her they went to the deacon, whom they 
found resigned, pious, and loftily superior to common 
things ; then he was a man, and a deacon ! Is it to be 
wondered at that their letter to the church at Bassett 
was in the deacon’s favor? They did indeed own that 
Mrs. Flint had “ peculiar trials,” but went on to say, — 
“ Nevertheless, she cannot be fully justified, but has 
departed from meekness and a Christian spirit . . . 
particularly in indulging angry and passionate expres¬ 
sions, tending to provoke and irritate her husband ; and, 
however unjustifiable his conduct may be, that doth not 
exculpate her. We think that it would be proper and 
suitable for her to make suitable refiections, acknowl¬ 
edge she hath given her brethren and sisters of the 
church occasion of stumbling and to be dissatisfied; 
and, upon her manifesting a becoming spirit of meek¬ 
ness and love, we think they ought to restore her * but, 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 415 


rf she should refuse to make such reflections, they can¬ 
not consistently receive her.” 

And with a few added remarks on the perplexity of 
the case, and advising the church to call the ecclesias¬ 
tical council, the Eev. Ami Dobbins and Father Hill 
retired for the present. 

But Bassett was not content. Weeks passed, and no 
act of confession or contrition came from this poor old 
offender. To tell the truth, Mabel stood behind her 
now, afire with honest rage at the way she had been 
put upon. 

“ You sha’n’t do it, aunty! ” she said, with all her 
native vehemence. 

“You confess! I like that! It is that old hypo¬ 
crite’s place to confess. He drove you out, now when 
you get down to it; and he hain’t asked you to come 
back, that I’ve heard tell. I’d let'him and the church, 
and Bassett too, go to thunder, if they’re a mind to. 
If you make ‘ suitable refiections,’ they’ll refiect on old 
Flint and Bassett church-members. Dear me ! I know 
one thing: I’d rather be an old maid ten times over 
than married to that man.” 

A faint smile crept over the old woman’s pale face. 
From her high pillows she had a good outlook, and 
uore than once she bad seen an interview by the little 
gate that did not augur long maidenhood for Mab. 

“Well, Mabel, if that’s your say, why, it behooves 
you to be real cautious, though I don’t know as Sam 
Pratt’s brother could be anyways other than good.” 

Mab blushed like a Provence rose, but said nothing, 
vet day after day kept hardening her aunt’s heart as 
well as she knew how; and Parson Roberts, receiving 
no “reflections” from the offender, and having great 


416 


somebody’s neighbors. 


faith in Father Hill’s power of persuasion, invited him 
to come again by himself, and hold a conversation with 
sister Flint on the subject of her trials and her contu¬ 
macy. 

Father Hill was a quaint, gentle, sweet-natured old 
man, steeped, however, in the prejudices of his time 
and his faith. He, too, went to the house mailed with 
his fixed assurance of ecclesiastical dignity and marital 
supremacy. Sympathy, pity, comprehension of her 
side of the case, would have disarmed Mrs. Flint com¬ 
pletely ; she would have sobbed, confessed, laid her 
hand on her mouth, and her mouth in the dust, and 
been ready to own herself the chief of sinners : but to 
be placed in the wrong from the first, reproved, ad¬ 
monished, and treated as an impenitent and hardened 
culprit, made it easier for her weak nature to accept 
the situation than to defy or to deny it. Nothing 
Father Hill could say moved her, but her dull and 
feeble obstinacy stirred his tender heart to its depths : 
he felt a despair of human means and a yearning ten¬ 
derness that could find no outlet but in prayer. He fell 
on his knees before the chair in which he had been 
sitting, and lifted his earnest face to heaven. 

“ O dear Lord and Master,” he said, speaking even 
as a man unto his friend, “ thou hast borne our griefs, 
and carried our sorrows. Thou knowest by heart 
every pain and woe that we feel. A stranger cannot 
intermeddle, but, O thou Hope of Israel, why shouldst 
thou be as a stranger that passeth by, and a wayfar¬ 
ing man that tarrieth but a night, in this dwelling of 
thy handmaid? Dear Lord, it is not in man that walk- 
eth to direct his own steps, how much less the steps of 
others! Come thou in the might of thy great gentle* 


MRS. flint's married EXPERIENCE. 417 


Dess and thine all-knowing sympathy and love, and 
show this child of thine the right way, saying, ‘ Walk 
ye in it.’ Thou knowest every sorrow she has passed 
through, every bitter draught she has drunk, every sin 
she has been led into: yea, when she said there was 
no comforter, thine eye pitied and thine arm waited 
to save her, though the eye of flesh saw it not. Come 
now, and place beneath her weary heart and failing 
flesh the everlasting arms of thy overflowing love and 
care ; give her peace and rest; give her an understand 
ing heart; above all, with thy love and pity redeem 
her, as thou didst the elder Israel, and bring her with 
tender leading and divine affection, not only into thy 
fold on earth, but to the general assembly and church 
of the first-born in heaven. And to thee shall be 
praise and love and glory forever. Amen.” 

When he arose, his old face fair with the shining of 
the mount from whence he came down, the poor 
woman, who had dropped her head on her hand, lifted 
it, and tried to thank him ; but streaming tears choked 
her, and behind the door into the shed a stifled sob 
betrayed some hidden auditor. 

“Farewell!” said Father Hill, and with a look of 
heavenly benignity went out from the house. His deep 
and earnest piety had got the better of his dogmas; 
and, so strange is human nature, he was a little 
ashamed of it. But on his departing steps the shed- 
door opened, and Mab came in, her face all washed 
with tears. 

“ That man’s got religion,” she said decisively. 
“I never heerd a mortal creature pray like that: 
seemed as though he see right into glory, and talked 
face to face with the Lord. If that’s bein’ pious, I 
wish I was as pious as fury mj^self.” 


418 


somebody’s neighbors. 


“He’s a good man,” sobbed Mrs. Flint; “one of 
the Lord’s an’inted, I make no doubt. And, Mabel, 
I don’t know but what I have did wrong. I ain’t 
noways heavenly-minded like him : mabbe I had ought 
to have put up with every thing.” 

“ No, you hadn’t: that ain’t so. But if it’s goin’ to 
make jmu easier, aunty, to ‘make reflections,’ as old 
Parson Roberts says, why, make ’em: only don’t tell 
no lies to the church because you’ve got into a heav¬ 
enly mood all to once. Folks that ain’t just to them¬ 
selves don’t never get justice elsewheres, now I tell 
you.” 

Father Hill, despairing of having impressed Mrs. 
Flint, had cast the matter into his Master’s hands, 
and from his study in Bassington sent a letter to Par¬ 
son Roberts, running thus : — 

“Key’d and dear Brother, — I have had Opportunity 
with Mrs. Flint, and find that she conceived her leaving the 
Deacon was a real duty at that time; that her Recovery under 
Providence turned upon it; that she did not then foresee the 
Consequences that such a step would issue in her final Sepa¬ 
ration. . . . She stands ready to reflect upon herself as far as 
she can be convinced she ought to do so, but thinks the fault 
is not on her Side as things now are. 

“I feel unable to direct or advise further. The cause of 
Religion, the cause of the Christian Church, you are very sen¬ 
sible, is of more Consequence than the Honor or Pease of any 
individual. If such a settlement can be made as may secure 
Religion from suffering, it must be an object to be desired. 
. . . Sensible of the Embarrassments you and the church 
labor under, and desirous to contribute my mite, I use this 
Freedom. 

“ This from your affectionate Brother, 

“Samuel J. Hill. 

To Rev’d Mn . Roberts. 

“ To be communicated if you think expedient.” 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 419 


But, while the ministers were in this strait about 
their obstinate parishioner, the Lord had answered 
Father Hill, unknown to himself, while he was yet 
speaking. Moved, and indeed melted, by the love 
and sympathy that prayer showed, Mrs. Flint, no 
longer hindered by Mabel, prepared herself to write 
“proper reflections’’ to the church; but in doing so 
was also perpetually prompted by Mabel not to traitor¬ 
ously deny her own cause, or slip aside from the truth 
in a voluntary humility ; and in due time the following 
confession was laid before that august body : — 

“I, the subscriber, Sarepta Flint, a member of the church 
of Christ in Bassett, sensible that the Church are dissatisfied 
with me on account of the Separation that has taken place 
between Deacon Flint and myself, and that they are Appre¬ 
hensive that I have not been innocent as to measures which 
have led to this unhappy Event, whereby Religion is wounded 
and the Pease of the Church disturbed, take this opportunity 
to publickly acknowledge myself a poor, imperfect Creture, 
and to own that under my Weak state of Body and weakness 
of mind, with which I was attended at one Time or another, 
I no doubt manifested on certain Occasions an unsuitable 
Temper of mind, said and Did things which under other Cir¬ 
cumstances I should not have said or done. I am far from 
justifying myself in all my conduct. Particular I would 
refiect on myself for that Expresion in regard to swearing the 
Pease against Deacon Flint. ... I ask the Forgivness of God 
and this church, and of all others who are aggrieved, and 
request the prayers of my Christian Brethren and Sisters that 
1 henceforth conduct as a true and faithful Disciple of Christ, 
und adorn the Solem Vocation by which I am called. 

“Sahepta Flint. 

<‘P.S. — I stand ready also to return to my Husband as 
lOon as a suitable Door opens for that Purpose.” 

Perhaps something in the self-respecting yet honest 
humility of this document touched the heart of Bassett 


420 


somebody’s neighbors. 


church; or jDcrhaps only their self-love and pride of 
place was soothed by it. Be that as it may, the confes¬ 
sion was accepted; and Parson Roberts, with a valoi 
and persistence that did him honor, insisted that 
Deacon Flint should go with him to inform his wife 
of her release from interdict, and also to open that 
“Door” of reconciliation to which she had so patheti¬ 
cally alluded. The parson’s wig was fresh buckled, the 
deacon’s cue new wound and tied, and their sabbath-day 
garments prim and speckless, as the next morning they 
opened the door of the old house where Sarepta Flint 
had taken refuge from her oppressor. A scene they 
little expected met their eyes. On the low bed, covered 
with its rough blue homespun spread, lay an evidently 
dying figure. A more “ Solem Vocation” than life 
had called Deacon Flint’s wife, and she was about to 
obey. Mindwell and Sam Pratt upheld her as she 
gasped for breath, and the two children clung together 
sobbing at her feet; while Mabel, with Joe Pratt’s arm 
about her, and her face streaming with tears she did 
not feel, stood by the bedside gazing at her friend. 
Her face blazed as the deacon and Parson Roberts 
entered; but, roused by the click of the latch, JVIrs. 
Flint opened her eyes, and looked at the youthful pair 
with a gentle smile. They had been the one bright 
outlook of her latter life, and to them she gave her 
last smile ; for, as her eyes turned toward her husband, 
a cold teiTor filled them, the lids fell, her head drooped 
on Mindwell’s shoulder, and with one long, shuddering 
sigh she escaped forever. The forgiveness of the 
church and the condescension of her husband came too 
.ate: she was already safe where the wicked cease 
Tom troubling, and the Consoler dries all mortal tears 


MRS. flint’s married EXPERIENCE. 421 


Deacon Flint stood like a stone. Did remorse 
ti’ouble him? Was regret busy at his heart? Or did 
he feel a bitter and deep chagrin at the loss of so much 
income ? 

Mabel’s tears ceased : she withdrew from Joe’s arm, 
and went round to where Deacon Flint stood. “Are 
you proper pleased now?” she said in a low voice cf 
concentred contempt and rage. “You’ve got her 
toned out of church, and into heaven. You won’t 
never see her again, — no, never! not to all eternity. 
But you’ve killed her as good as if you took an axe to 
her. You can take that hum to sleep on.” 

“ Hush ! ” said Parson Roberts, with all the dignity 
a little man could give to his voice and manner. 
“When the Lord giveth quietness, who, then, can 
make trouble?” 

But even as he spoke, Joe Pratt—his face full of 
black wrath — set his hand to the deacc^n’s collar, 
and walked him summarily into the road. Mabel had 
spoken truth: never again did he see his wife’s face, 
not even in the fair peace of death. Whether ever, in 
that far world of souls, they met again, is perhaps 
doubtful: let us pray not. Mrs. Flint’s married expe¬ 
rience was over in this world a hundred years ago, 
and in the next “ they neither marry nor are given in 
marriage.” 




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